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Acadia National Park Week: Sailing Out of Northeast Harbor

If you truly want to feel like a local on Mount Desert Island, take a day sail on a Friendship Sloop from Northeast or Southwest Harbor. Sail Acadia offers the opportunity to take a 3-hour guided sail on three Friendship Sloops, vessels that were used during the late 1800s to fish for lobsters along the Frenchman Bay shoreline. We sailed on the Helen Brooks, a replica designed with sailing in mind. Under the skilled guidance of Ryan at the wheel and his sidekick Savannah, we motored past the estates lining the Northeast Harbor shores and a seal that popped his head out of the water. Near the lighthouse perched atop Bear Island, Jeff and I helped hoist the sails. Winds were strong. In fact, there was a small craft advisory in effect, so Ryan had already reefed the mainsail and we chose to use only the staysail instead of the stronger jib. Soon we were gliding at a good 5-knot clip past Great Cranberry Island and the many lobstermen picking up their traps. 

With a 6-foot keel, these sailboats can weather the strong gusts and fog often found along the Maine coast. Edged with spruce wood, the Helen Brooks is also a stylish ride. Near the beach at Manset, we spotted two porpoises gracefully arching their backs in and out of the choppy water. Then we sailed past Southwest Harbor into Somes Sound, Acadia Mountain to the left and Norumbega Mountain to the right, standing tall as gatekeepers to this long inlet. The mix of mountains, offshore islands, and granite-lined shoreline could easily entice the most jaded sailor to buy his own sloop and sail these legendary cruising grounds on a daily basis. Far too quickly, we were back on the docks of Northeast Harbor. Cost of the sail is $75 per person or you can rent the entire vessel for $375. 
 

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Great Freedom Adventures Offers New Biking Trip to Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island

Ever since I wrote my first book, Outside Magazine’s Adventure Guide to New England, I’ve admired local outfitters who specialize in one sport and one region of the world. After all, who knows his neck of the woods better than the guy who lives there? These outfitters can’t afford a big splashy catalogue or a PR firm in New York or London to represent them, so you have to dig a little deeper to find companies like Great Freedom Adventures out of New England. What you’ll get in return are itineraries that direct you to the top locales in the area. Take, for example, Great Freedom Adventures’ new 6-day bike trip called the Islands and Seacoast Biking Tour. It seems intuitive to combine New England’s most majestic islands, Martha’s Vineyard and Rhode Island’s Block Island together in one summer bike trip, but I’ve never seen that done before. They also have guests staying one night in Newport and one night in Little Compton, Rhode Island, a real gem where I often bike on a day trip to Boston. The $2695 price includes all lodging, transportation, most meals, bike rentals, and guides.

 
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The Trustees of Reservations Week, The Splendor of the Crane Estate

In 1949, the descendants of plumbing magnate Richard Crane bestowed their entire 2100-acre estate in Ipswich, 30 miles north of Boston in Cape Ann, to the Trustees of Reservations.  This includes their 59-room Stuart-style mansion, the grounds designed by none other than the Olmsted brothers, a 4.5-mile stretch of Atlantic beach, and a ten-room 19th century cottage and connected tavern which is now the Inn at Castle Hill. Unlike the unheralded properties I visited yesterday, the Crane Estate is the crown jewel of the Trustees sites, especially Crane Beach, beloved by New Englanders.

 
House tours of the Great House on Castle Hill start today for the season. Already there are 70 weddings booked this summer. Once you tour the house and then peer down at the undulating Grand Allee, a sweeping half-mile long front lawn that leads to bluffs overlooking Crane Beach, you’ll want to be married here too. The Trustees does an exemplary job recreating the exact look of the estate when Richard Crane lived here in its heyday in the roaring 20s. A portrait of Richard Crane’s father, painted by Anders Zorn, is the latest addition, thanks to the generosity of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Also look for the symbolist paintings by Richard’s daughter-in-law that hang in his son’s room.
 
The grounds have never looked better, thanks to the replanting of Norway spruce, white pine, and cedar trees along the Grand Allee. New this summer is work on the Casino, a marble-studded pool that hasn’t seen the light of day since the acquisition. Even if you don’t get married here, take a house tour, walk the grounds, and stay for a Thursday night concert. This summer’s performers include Latin music from Grupo Fantasia and rock by The Fools.
 
Better yet, spend the night just below the Great House at the Inn at Castle Hill. Few inns in America can look out from their wraparound porch onto miles of uninterrupted salt marsh and beach and call it their own. Overstuffed couches rest on polished pine floors in front of two grand fireplaces.  Walk upstairs past the whimsical trompe l’oeil painting and sunlit window seats and you’ll reach rooms like Cornelius (Richard’s son), with its custom-made king-size bed and sweeping view of the coastline.
 
Breakfast, included in the price, uses the eggs and milk farmed just down the road at the Trustees’ 1000-acre Appleton Farms. Open to the public, Appleton is the oldest continuously operating farm, in existence since 1638. Stroll or horseback ride on grassy trails past rows of veggies to the Appleton Old House. Both Appleton Old House and the Great House on the Crane Estate are part of the Trustees’ Free Home Sweet Home Open House Tour taking place on May 31st. Or consider taking a cooking class at Appleton, including cheesemaking, fish cookery, or gluten-free living.
 
Guests spending the night at Inn at Castle Hill also receive a voucher to visit Crane Beach. Go at sunrise or sunset, before the crowds arrive or after they leave. Walk the white crescent sand at your leisure and appreciate the incredible gift the Crane family gave to the people of Massachusetts. This is philanthropy at its best. 
 
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ActiveTravels.com Named One of the Top 125 Travel Blogs in the World

I was happy to hear this week that ActiveTravels.com was named one of the top 125 travel blogs in the world by the premiere adventure outfitter, Austin-Lehman Adventures. Not only that, but Austin-Lehman is offering two lucky readers from one of the nominated travel blogs a chance to win a trip for two on one of their glamorous getaways. Simply give them your name, email address, and mention ActiveTravels.com as your travel blog of choice. Thanks again for sticking with me these past several years! My brother just purchased a new HD video camera that’s perfect for video blogging, so I plan to talk to you directly in the upcoming months. I also promise to update my Facebook fan page and add more content to Go Play!, your one-stop resource to the great outdoors. Have a great weekend and do something active! I’ll be back next week with Canadian adventures.
 

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Quebec’s Winter Carnival

Just up the road from Montreal, 30 minutes outside of Quebec City, is North America’s first ice hotel, Hotel de Glace. 32 new rooms are created each year out of 12,000 tons of snow and 400 tons of ice, along with an Absolut ice bar, Jacuzzis, and a dance club. Bring those long johns. Temperature inside is a mere 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Quebec City is also home to one of the finest winter carnivals. For 16 days, January 27-February 12, the party never stops. More than one million people descend upon the fortified city to cheer on the competition in Le Grande Virée, a dogsled race that cruises through the heart of the historic Old City, or watch paddlers sprint across the turgid waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The French-flavored festivities continue with tours of the Ice Palace, a giant medieval castle constructed of pure crystalline water, parades, snow sculpture contests, inner tube sled rides, dancing to live music, and late night jaunts to heated tents to sample the potent drink called Caribou, made of whiskey, red wine, and maple syrup. One swig of this and you might be running naked through the snowfields.

 

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Visit Boston’s MFA

Over the past decade, pundits have criticized Malcolm Rogers, the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for sending priceless Monets to the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas and staging questionable exhibitions like the display of Ralph Lauren’s sports cars, as a veiled attempt to raise money for the museum’s expansion. The launch of Rogers’ monumental endeavor, the $504 million Art of the Americas Wing in November 2010 has silenced most critics and cements Rogers’ legacy. Foster + Partners designed a 4-story building with adjoining pavilions on either side to house the 53 new galleries. Walk into the soaring glass-enclosed courtyard, where trees and holly bushes have been planted just outside its windows to mirror Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace. Then journey through three millennia of North, South, and Central American works, from pre-Colombian gold on the Court Level to the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe on the top floor. Highlights include the galleries devoted to the works of John Singer Sargent and John Singleton Copley, and the Roswell Gleason parlor and dining room, two mid-19th century period rooms taken intact from a house in nearby Dorchester and never displayed to the public before.
 
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5 Adventures on a Shoestring, Mountain Biking Across the Malay Peninsula

It took more than two years to design and build a 205-mile mountain biking trek that crosses Thailand’s Malay Peninsula. But now that it’s complete, fat wheelers are calling it some of the best riding in Southeast Asia. Starting in Surat Thani, you bike through jungle, rubber and palm plantations, and small villages from the Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand. Leaving the masses behind, you’ll get a chance to see the real Thailand on a weeklong trek offered by Thai Cycle. There’s also a shorter 5-day ride that gets you halfway across, zipping up and down numerous singletracks along the way. Cost for the 7-day trip starts at $817 per person, including food, guides, lodging, camping, and bikes. Don’t forget your Camelbak. 

 

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