A sailboat is the ultimate slower traffic.

My Cape Dory 25 sloop tops out at about seven knots*, and that’s in the best possible weather conditions. The small outboard motor can push the boat at five knots in a flat calm. It takes most of two days to get from Bangor to Rockland, a distance one can drive in two hours.

I usually make this annual trip with crew. But circumstances this year forced me to do it alone. Which was fine – I grew up with boats in Maine, and ever since I moved back here from California at the turn of the millennium I’ve had one. I’ve also done a fair amount of single-handing, and my Cape Dory is nothing if not seaworthy.

Thus I was caught off-guard (I guess the pun is intended) on the second day out, when the orange powerboat coming up the bay kept turning in my direction. I had raised the sails and cut the motor and was working the light morning breeze for whatever I could get out of it, just south of where the Islesboro Ferry crosses to Lincolnville. It was about ten in the morning.

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