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The Maine Island Trail

Sail-and-oar, island to island, Penobscot Bay and east.

target 2028Late Augustdream, not a plan
Schooner Surprise off Camden, Maine
A schooner off Camden. The bay is full of them in August · Photo: John Brandt, CC BY-SA 2.0

The idea

A water trail of 240 islands and mainland sites from Kittery to the Canadian border, most of them primitive, many of them private and lent to the Maine Island Trail Association on trust. You join, you get the guide and the app, you camp small and leave nothing.

The version I want is not the whole thing. It is ten to fourteen days out of Rockland or Camden: the Muscle Ridge, Vinalhaven, Merchant Row off Stonington, Isle au Haut, and back. Sailing when there is wind, rowing when there isn't, sleeping on granite.

“Cruising without an engine releases tension from sticking to some plan and forces you to be in the moment.”Cruising World, sailing and camping east Maine

The route

RocklandMuscle RidgeVinalhavenNorth HavenStonington · Merchant RowIsle au HautSwans IslandBass HarborCamdenN10 nm
The Maine Island Trail — route sketch — schematic, drawn from waypoints, not a chart. Don't navigate by it.
distance
375 miles end to end; ~150 nm for a two-week slice
when
Late August to mid-September (clearest air, warmest water)
boat
Small sail-and-oar boat with a tent

A sketch of the schedule

Roughly how it goes, from the people who have done it. Numbers to be corrected by weather.

whenwhat
Days 1–2Rockland to the Muscle Ridge islands. Short first day on purpose.
Days 3–5Across to Vinalhaven and North Haven. The Thorofare.
Days 6–8Merchant Row and Stonington. The showpiece.
Days 9–10Isle au Haut, Duck Harbor. Fog day built in.
Days 11–12Swans Island, Bass Harbor if the wind allows.
Days 13–14Back west across the bay to Camden. Lobster.

The other version

Two boats, one per family, a week out of Rockland. A pal chartered Aria, a 1962 Challenger 39 yawl, from North Point in Rockland with his dad in 2018 and sailed almost exactly the loop above: Pulpit Harbor, across East Penobscot Bay, the Deer Island Thorofare, McGlathery, Isle au Haut. A thirty-nine-foot yawl on this coast is not a bad way to rehearse the last page.

Pictures to remember it by

A yacht anchored in Duck Harbor, Isle au Haut
Duck Harbor, Isle au Haut · HopsonRoad, CC BY-SA 4.0
Isle au Haut light
Isle au Haut light · Yifan Wang, CC BY 2.0
Granite and spruce, Maine coast
Granite and spruce · Eric Richards, CC BY-SA 3.0

When, honestly

2028

Join MITA the winter before. Two weeks in late August with the boat on a trailer and the family meeting me in Camden. Fog gets a day; it doesn't get the trip.

Resources

Other people's accounts and the official pages. Read these before believing anything above.