Change of Scenery

Jen Brett

As lovely as the evening view is from Lyra's Newport mooring, we're ready for a change of scenery. At least for a little while!

I'll admit it- it's been a few years since I've made a substantial offshore passage, particularly one that involves an overnight under way. These last years have been otherwise filled with fairly typical life events—kids, career, buying our boat home—but despite living on a boat, our cruising has been limited to short day hops around Narragansett Bay or Block Island. The reason is mostly that the season here in Newport, Rhode Island, is short, and since my husband is a boat captain, he works pretty non-stop all summer. But after doing this routine for several years, it's gotten old. We NEED to leave the Newport area. And so we are.

Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? The Lyra crew—myself, my husband, Green, and our two daughters, ages 7 and 2—are planning to head out on a fall cruise in mid-September. Our ambitious destination is Maine, and since we only have about two weeks, we plan to get there as quickly as possible and then do some coastal hops on the way back south. It will definitely be a first for our family, and we're psyched. Hopefully the girls will have a good time and it won't turn into the train wreck that was our "fun family hike" over the weekend (after the youngest threw up all over herself and daddy, and the older one was debilitated by blisters and then soaked by a fall into a stream, Green then suggested that we should maybe "work up" to camping—nevermind that we used to camp all of the time before kids. We used to cruise a lot before kids too... Hmmmm... And did I mention that we're also bringing my mother-in-law along for the ride? ).

Stay tuned for our last-minute project and itinerary updates. What are your favorite stops along the coast from New Hampshire to Penobscot Bay, Maine? Any great things to do with kids?