Penobscot Bay is dotted with islands offering sheltered coves and protected harbors, one of the reasons it's such a popular yachting area. John Foss, American Eagle's skipper and owner, brings the schooner around and heads up the coast, following the line of the Camden Hills that begin just north of Rockland. The ruggedly beautiful Maine coastal scenery is another reason people love to sail up here. The next night it could be Deer Isle, Stonington, North Haven, or wherever. What it isn't is a trip on a luxury liner.
Cabins are comfortable but usually cramped.
Entertainment is homegrown. Foss reads poems and short stories to his passengers after dinner, for instance, while other captains play the guitar or organize sea chantey singalongs. All of the dozen or so windjammers in the fleet have a lobster bake during each cruise, usually on an uninhabited island. You'll never know just how good a Maine lobster can taste until you've eaten one cooked in a bucket of seawater on the beach of a lupine-speckled island in Penobscot Bay. Windjammers themselves are as indigenous to the Maine coast as lobsters and a century ago seemed nearly as common.