New MDI boat launch (Bar Harbor: airport, trailer, retired)

[slyfox2]

I just visited the new facilities for launching at Lamoine State Park(across the water about a mile to a mile and a half from MDI). It used to be just a launch ramp, but now they have a floatable dock that sits next to the launch ramp. This is clearly the best launch area short of going all the way down to Northeast Harbor. And, I actually think its better than NEH too.

The facilities in Bar Harbor are right in the center of the town, which is useless once tourist season starts. The old launch that I used was at Hadley Point(Bar Harbor's alternative launch place---they own the beach) or the Airport at Morris Yachts. Hadley has a great ramp but no place to tie the boat up once its off the trailer, so it would be impossible to launch it yourself without danger of losing the boat, and you always had to actually get into the water to launch it, and really needed three people.

The Airport, really has no dock either, so you have to tie the boat to a rock out on the jetty next to the ramp.

But the new facility at Lamoine has a great dock right next to the ramp. You can pull the boat off the trailer if it doesn't float off, and you can tie it up right away. You could launch it all by yourself there, if you had to. This is especially a boon for us retired people who have trouble finding others to help us launch the boat if you actually have to get into the water.

And as a special bonus, now we don't have to tow the dinghy with us. We had to use it to get out to the boat as it was being held on a line, and there just in case it got away from us, and we had to race out after it.
We also had to keep a line on the boat from shore, with some one in it keeping an electric trolling motor running to keep it from floating away.....Generally it was a real pain, and required all kinds of contingency plans in case of problems.

All in all a great new facility. No special contingency plans needed. If only Bar harbor would put something like that into Hadley Beach.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Great news. We'll be down there in June for a few days.