To navigate the waters of Penobscot Bay, and the Gulf of Maine, takes experience, training, and much skill. Varied currents and wave patterns, not to mention the pull and push of tides, create endless conditions to pilot through. The ocean bottom is rocky and ledges are ubiquitous, often barely submerged. Watching captains dock their vessels in crowded harbors may look like a breeze, but it takes a cool head and concentration. Being captain of a vessel, however, is a calling like no other, no matter whether it’s a lobster boat, schooner, fancy yacht, ferry or tanker. Talk with these captains and you understand. Many of them are couples, with young children, and love the lifestyle. We visited with some, and here’s what they had to say about the world of boats.

Captains Andy Barstow, Nick Thompson, Jeffrey Delaney, Eric Abrich, Phil Reinhart

On the waterfront of Port Clyde, at Monhegan Boat Lines, the five captains — Andy Barstow, Nick Thompson, Jeffrey Delaney, Eric Abrich and Phil Reinhart — of the Laura B and the Elizabeth Ann take turns at the helm, ferrying people and cargo to and from Monhegan, or running sunset, puffin and lighthouse cruises. They run the vessels year-round, through the worst of winter and the best of summer. They love all of it. And boy, don’t they laugh.

Hang on the dock with them for a few minutes, and the jokes will be flying, as they unload old washing machines that have come over from Monhegan, or load up 40 tanks of propane, headed to the island. The run is a little over an hour through some of the most picturesque waters of Maine — the eastern edge of Muscongus Bay and western edge of Penobscot Bay, around Hupper, Allen and Little Burnt islands for a an hour’s crossing to Monhegan.

Andy Barstow is the head captain; he owns the Monhegan Boat Line with his wife, Amy.

Andy grew up on the Laura B, an Army T-boat (one of the 170 transportation vessels constructed in 1943 for utilitarian purposes), as his father, Jim, owned the Monhegan Boat Line. Today, the Laura B carries 35 passengers, and is at capacity in the summer. Both the Laura B and the Elizabeth Ann are part of the mainland-island infrastructure, transporting not only people and pets, but the mail and other important cargo.

“I grew up taking care of the Laura B,” said Andy.

That’s before he set off in the world, first to Maine Maritime Academy, in Castine, graduating with the Class of 1992. He worked elsewhere on the water but returned to Maine, and Port Clyde to take over the family business.

“It’s the beauty, and we really do take it for granted,” he said. “I went to sea for 10 years, but here, every day, when I come down over the hill I just look out there at the beauty.”

Both Nick Thompson and Jeff Delaney hold the same sentiments. Nick grew up in the area; his father’s lobster boat is moored in Port Clyde and like his grandfather, Nick has fished commercially, both locally and out of New Bedford, Mass., for scallops and ground fish. Twenty-five-foot seas don’t bother him, because it’s in his blood.

“I know the boats can handle it,” he said. 

But the pull of the Midcoast was strong, and he came home. Nick and his wife, Jill, lived on North Haven for a few years, but decided the St. George peninsula is the place to raise their two children, 4 and 2, so he signed on with Monhegan Boat Lines two years ago, and loves it.

“Each season is different, and it’s pretty nice in the summer,” he says, in his low-key kind of way. Nick has a lobster boat of his own — “it’s a project,” he said. He and Jill are hoping some day to get a cruising sailboat and explore different waters.

Capt. Jeffrey Delaney eases the Laura B into the dock like a charm. He loves that boat, and has been captain for the past 10 years. He is passionate about being on the water, and would rather be nowhere else.

“It’s the freedom,” he said. “The air and conditions are never the same.”

A native of Worcester, Mass., he also gravitated to the Midcoast, where his grandfather is from, and has lived on the peninsula for 12 years. It’s a seven-minute commute from his home in Tenants Harbor, and at 4:30 a.m. on a summer’s morning, the commute can be a slice of paradise.

“I never had to work indoors, in a cubicle atmosphere,” he said, his face crinkling with distaste. “Here, I’m one with the water, the people and the boat.”

Amy Barstow keeps business humming at the office, just up the hill from the harbor. Just to keep an eye on things, she’ll pull out her powerful binoculars to make sure the boats are coming through the channel. 

The captains all are trained in safety, and their consideration of the passengers. They all take special care to provide good rides for whoever is on the boats.

“We do a lot of homework to make sure the passengers can be safe and comfortable,” said Nick.

FMI: monheganboat.com

Captain Vern Lewis

The Stella di Mare is a handsome 58-foot Hatteras motor yacht, and Captain Vern Lewis, along with his wife, Susan, are looking forward to Summer 2018 and taking guests aboard the classic vessel to explore Penobscot Bay —  “probably the best cruising grounds in the world,” Vern said.

With his 3,000-ton captain’s license he earned in 1978, Vern has seen plenty of sea, piloting boats in Africa, along the coast of North and South America and into the Gulf of Mexico. 

But his favorite adventures have included driving boats around the Congo River, in Africa. 

“I liked working at the mouth of the Congo,” he said. “It was unique and we were trading with people in dugout canoes, a gallon of oil for fresh fish and lobster.”

He eventually returned to Maine, to the Midcoast and St. George.

“I grew up on Clark Island,” he said. “It’s home."

At one time, Vern owned a boat company, Hardy Boat Cruises, with a homeport of New Harbor. He sold it 22 years ago, and then realized he missed the sea.

Now, he and Susan are back in the boat business, this time with the classic Hatteras that they purchased four years ago in Kent Narrows, Maryland. For more than 60 years, the Hatteras is considered legendary in fiberglass boat design and craftsmanship. It is a comfortable, even luxurious, ride aboard a strong seaworthy vessel.

Vern and Susan had been searching for a 58-foot Hatteras and finally found the perfect boat. 

Four years ago, they motored the Stella di Mare up the coast to Journey’s End in Rockland, to make Penobscot Bay her new home.

Susan and Vern are looking forward to having guests experience cruising on a classic yacht, and enjoy all the scenery that Penobscot Bay has to offer. They are offering morning and evening harbor cruises, and tea-on-the-sea, an afternoon cruise on the bay. And, they are scheduling charters for groups, and events. FMI: stellayacht.com

Captain Ramiro and Boss Nicole de Acevedo Ramos

Nicole and Ramiro own the historic schooner Surprise, a 57-foot wooden beauty that was built 100 years ago in Rockport, Mass., as a racing and cruising yacht. Today, they sail her out of Camden, taking passengers out for day and evening cruises.

Ramiro is an old Southern Atlantic salt, sailing since he was 6 in his home country of Argentina, in Mar del Elda Plata, just south of Buenos Aires. He started on Optimas, 420s, Snipes and Lasers.

“Sailing is all I know,” he said.

He took to the sea, and flirted with commercial fishing down in the Roaring 40s, Deadly 50s and even the Screaming 60s.

“It was the roughest and toughest,” he said, aboard a 250-foot boat with 30 crew members. Good for 18 months, “but not what I wanted to do.”

Ramiro returned to the world of sailboats, and eventually made it to Key West while sailing a friend’s boat south. He met Nicole, a Camden native, in 1997 there, while she was aboard the Appledore.

“We met on the docks and the rest is history,” he said. History in the making, because they teamed up, headed north, captained Too Elusive for nine years, and Isabel for six years. Ramiro worked for Yachting Solutions in Rockland,  and somewhere in all of that, they had a child, Delfina, and their family grew. But in 2013, they assumed stewardship of the Surprise after Jack and Barbara Moore decided to sell her.

Nicole and Ramiro love Penobscot Bay, “the most wonderful place to sail in the world,” said Ramiro. “There are great winds year-round, for racing and daysailing. The coast is protected from ocean swells, and there is the beautiful sea breeze in the summer, from the southwest.”

And they appreciate the Surprise.

“We’ve been loving her since we bought her, learning how to maintain and sail a 100-year-old schooner, with her big beamy curves,” said Ramiro.

Together, the Boss and the Captain are a team, and they are on the Midcoast, exactly where they want to be, sailing Surprise, and showing passengers the best of Penobscot Bay.

 Kate Kana and Zander Parker

There is adventure in sailing on Penobscot Bay,  with its hundreds of island, quiet anchorages and bustling small ports.

“One could sail decades without visiting a single destination more than once,” said Zander Parker and Kate Kana, the two owners and captains of the historic motorsailor Guildive, homeported in Castine and sometimes in Belfast. “And if you go further into the Gulf of Maine, the voyaging potential from Down East can include foreign ports of call in Nova Scotia or more urban areas like Portland.”

Kate and Zander are longtime sailors. Zander grew up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, sailing his Laser, and then aboard the barque Picton Castle, and was second mate on the lovely schooner Bluenose II, whose homeport is Lunenburg, and even had a stint aboard on an oil tanker. He also attended Maine Maritime Academy’s small vessel operations program.

Kate, likewise, grew up on boats, though further south in Maryland, racing on the Chesapeake and the Caribbean, then aboard sailboats headed to Hawaii and Tahiti. She has taught students aboard the schooner Lady Maryland, the Brigantine Exy Johnson, and Harvey Gamage.

Kate and Zander agreed, however, that it was time to put down roots together.

“We were working at sea, sometimes together but more often apart, which was hard,” they said. “In our decision to live and work together we both believed becoming captains would lead to shared responsibilities and an equality that has made for a successful business partnership.”

Kate and Zander now live in Castine, with their 3-year-old son, Coe, and the 80 year-old Guildive, a 56-foot motorsailor that was built for family cruising at the Wheeler Boatyard in Brooklin, N.Y. They both hold Coast Guard licenses, and they regard Guildive a grandmotherly figure.

“She cares for us and keeps our family safe and we love to share this sense of gentle care with our guests,” they said. “There is ample room to be up on deck out in the weather or the wheel house can provide respite from the chilly wind or out of the blazing sun. The comfort Guildive provides is universal and appreciated by young and old.”

Kate and Zander will be celebrating 10 years on the bay this year, which is also the 84th birthday for Guildive. They love summer days, watching sea birds, seals and porpoises, “and the ever-changing weather and the glory of the setting sun keeps us interested and enjoying our work.”

The captains are also fond of taking people new to the water out for a cruise.

“Our favorite moments have all been with those who are having a first -time experience,” they said. “Whether it is seeing a whale, seal or porpoise or driving a classic wooden yacht for the first time bring joy and satisfaction of a job well done.”

The light across the water also brings joy. 

“It captures our imagination and we daydream of voyages over the horizon to find adventure most anywhere on the planet,” they said. “The camaraderie found upon the ocean brings the world into our community brimming with adventure. The natural world keeps us grounded so we turn and appreciate the fellowship ashore when hazards arise.”

FMI: castinecruises.com

Captain Dom and Liz Gioia

Ask Captain Dom what he likes best about running a cruise boat from the Camden docks out into Penobscot Bay, and his eyes light up.

“The people,” he said. “Every trip has a new dynamic, and with a boat, something always happens.”

That’s the spice of life for a man who is at one with the sea, as well as the Maine woods.

Dom grew up in Corinna, and first set out to be a forest ranger, graduating from the University of Maine at Presque Isle. But that was just when the Great Recession hit, and the state was laying off staff. So, he headed to the coast, to Portland, where he worked on commercial and recreational boats, and managed a dock. There, he met Liz, who had been raised in Waldoboro, and they got married. Dom and Liz thought about buying a house in Portland but then turned their gaze to the Midcoast, to Camden — and haven’t once looked back.

Dom worked for Journey’s End in Rockland, and other boat owners, but he and Liz decided to buy the Lively Lady, a motor vessel of lobster boat design built in 1971 at Bass Harbor Boatshop on Mount Desert Island. The Lively Lady spent many decades in Camden Harbor under various ownerships, but always for taking passengers for fun cruises around the local waters.

Dom loves the boat because she is wooden, a cedar-planked vessel that he enjoys working on. He also is a certified diver, and will jump overboard and go deep, returning with all kinds of marine life that he and Liz quarter temporarily in a touch tank they maintain on the Lively Lady. (They always return the creatures back to the ocean in good stead).

And the passengers, most of them new to Maine waters, are enthralled by the scenery, the birds and sea life.

Captain Dom loves it all, and can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I never did well in an office,” he said. 

He and Liz, and their daughter, Tansy, salty dog Pete, resident cat and five chickens live in Camden, and when he needs to get back to the woods to hike, the Camden Hills are right in the backyard. Who needs anything more?   

FMI: camdenharborcruises.com

Captain Aaron Lincoln

A local Mainer, Aaron Lincoln grew up in Rockland, and on the waters of Penobscot Bay. He knows it like the back of his hand, and considers it to be one of his favorite locations.

Aaron grew up sailing, and has explored Florida Keys, Boston,  the British Virgin Islands, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, St. Martin, and Cape Cod, all on a variety of vessels.

He now owns two sailboats that are home-ported in Camden, the Olad and the Owl.

The Olad is a 57-foot schooner, built in 1927 by Chester Crosby at the Crosby Boat Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts. She is built of cedar on white oak, and is both sturdy and beautiful. She is popular for  two-hour day sails as much as she is chartered for private events, and weddings.

The Owl  was designed by John Alden to be a fast and comfortable cruising boat. Built in 1941, she is a timeless classic and is available to charter for up to six passengers, making her one of the most private wooden sailboat in Camden's fleet. The Owl takes two and three-hour public sails daily and is  available for two-hour, three-hour, four-hour, six-hour, or full-day private sailing charters.  With advance notice the Owl will take passengers to Stontington for an overnight at one of the inns, to Vinalhaven for a dinner and overnight at Nebo Lodge, or rent a tent site at Warren Island State Park, and a lobsterbake.

Captain Aaron is at home on the sea, a place he has always visited to unwind from the stresses of life. He chose early on “to spend my days working in the environment that I love.”