1. Angelique
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 785-6036 or (800) 282-99
Address: P.O. Box 736
Description: The Angelique was built specifically to work the windjammer trade, launched in 1980. Ketch-rigged, with beautiful maroon sails, it is 95 feet long and was modeled after English fishing schooners of the 19th century. Captain Mike and Lynne McHenry offer primarily three- and four-day trips, though they sail for as many as 11.
2. Grace Bailey
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-2938 or (800) 736-79
Address: P.O. Box 617
Description: The flagship of the Maine Windjammer Cruise fleet, the Grace Bailey got its start hauling timber and granite to the West Indies. A 123-foot coaster, it was built in 1882. Captain Ray and Ann Williamson offer weekend and five-day cruises.
3. Mary Day
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 785-5670 or (800) 992-22
Address: P.O. Box 798
Description: The schooner Mary Day was built in the 1960s with the aim of being a comfortable passenger vessel—and it succeeds. Ninety feet long, it was the first pure sailing schooner built in Maine since the 1930s, and it’s known as a very fast vessel, perennially winning the Great Schooner Race. Captains Barry King and Jen Martin are first-rate hosts, and they offer lighthouse cruises, naturalist trips, foliage tours, and even a folk-music outing, in addition to their usual three-, four-, and six-day sails.
4. Mercantile
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-2938 or (800) 736-79
Address: P.O. Box 617
Description: This was the ship that started it all in 1942, back when legendary captain Frank Swift started taking people out on cruising vacations and thus founded the Maine windjammer trade. The 115-foot Mercantile dates back to 1916 and served its prepassenger life as a cargo ship, toting barrel staves, salt fish, and firewood. Today it offers three- and four-day cruises.
5. Mistress
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-2938 or (800) 736-79
Address: P.O. Box 617
Description: The Mistress is the specialty boat in the Maine Windjammer Cruises fleet, built on the lines of a coasting schooner but laid out like a yacht belowdecks, allowing for more room and privacy for passengers. It’s 60 feet long, accommodates just six passengers, and can be chartered.
6. Appledore
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-8353
Address: Bayview Landing
Description: The last schooner custom-built by the well-known Harvey Gamage shipyard in South Bristol using age-old shipbuilding methods, the 86-foot Appledore was launched in 1978. It works both Key West and Camden now, offering two-hour tours of Penobscot Bay four times daily in spring, summer, and fall, including a sunset cruise. You can help raise the sails and even take a turn at the wheel if you like, all while taking in vistas of islands, mountains, birds, and seals.
7. Betselma
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-4446
Address: Bayview Landing
Description: The 30-foot Betselma was once a working lobster boat and now takes passengers where the hauling used to be done. Captained by Les Bex, it leaves the public landing in the Camden harbor on one-, two-, and three-hour cruises around Penobscot Bay and its islands, with the captain narrating away. He has 35 years of experience and will fill you in on the lobster industry, the three lighthouses you pass, the seabirds and seals you see, and local history. Rates are $10 an hour per adult, half price for kids.
8. Olad
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-2323
Address: Bayview Landing
Description: The schooner Olad sails from Camden Harbor five times daily, beginning at 9:45 a.m., but the trip you shouldn’t miss is the one that pushes off at 5 p.m. every day from mid-June through mid-August for a two-hour sail about Penobscot Bay. The sun falling behind the round, green heads of the Camden Hills is a sublime sight. So is the Olad, for that matter. The graceful 57-foot, two-masted schooner is a classic wooden windjammer, and it once whisked Walter Cronkite about. Passage is $29 per person.
9. Surprise
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-4687
Address: Bayview Landing
Description: The oldest of Camden’s day-sailing windjammers, the schooner Surprise was built in 1918 to be a racing yacht, and it was granted Historic Landmark status in 1991. A 57-foot beauty, Surprise putters out of Camden’s photogenic harbor for two-hour sails four times daily from July 1 through mid-September (three times daily after that through October 15) before hauling sails and running with the wind. Rates are $30 per person, and smoking is not allowed.
10. Lively Lady Too
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-6672
Address: Bayview Landing
Description: A former biology teacher, Captain Alan Philbrick knows his way about the marine environment, and he offers passengers aboard his lobster boat, the Lively Lady Too, a lively question-and-answer session while checking traps on the magnificent waters of Penobscot Bay. Binoculars and cameras are recommended on this trip, as seals, eagles, ospreys, sea ducks, and other seabirds are often spotted. Three trips are done daily in summer at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Address: Route 1
12. Coastal Mountains Land Trust
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-7091
Address: 101 Mount Battie St.
Description: This fantastic Midcoast conservation outfit has been fighting the good fight since 1987, when it placed an easement on Beech Hill, site of a neat old stone tea house and 360-degree views of mountains and sea. Since then they’ve protected almost 7,000 acres from Rockport to Prospect, in 56 preserves. Quite aside from their significance in saving open space and wildlife habitat, these places make for great day hikes. You can scale Bald Mountain or Mount Percival, walk a spectacular saltwater headland in Rockport at Harkness, stroll along Lake Megunticook’s Fernald Neck, hike the scenic Ducktrap River in Lincolnville, and trek miles along the Passagassawakeag Greenway in Belfast. And of course, take a picnic to the top of Beech Hill. The trust’s Web site has all the details.
13. Camden Public Library
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-3440
Address: Route 1
Description: One of the state’s more distinctive libraries, perched on a hill underneath Mount Battie and above the harbor, the library has a beautiful spread out front. Some call it the finest institutional garden in the state, and it is pretty all season long. The amphitheater designed by Fletcher Steele in 1929 is another reason to visit (as is the park across the street, which was laid out at the same time by the Olmsted brothers).
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Address: Conway Rd.
15. Lewis R. French
City: Camden, ME
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (207) 236-2463 or (800) 469-46
Address: P.O. Box 992
Description: The Lewis R. French was bestowed National Historic Landmark status in 1992, and it was about time, since it was launched in 1871 in Christmas Cove and is the oldest schooner in the Maine windjammer fleet. The ship is 64 feet long and previously served as a working vessel, hauling lumber, bricks, granite, lime, and Christmas trees—all those classic Maine exports. Captain Garth Wells runs three-, four-, six-, and 11-day getaways.