Mouillage

Isle of Shoals

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Shelter: W, E, SW, S, SE
Seabed: rock, mud
Anchoring: Allowed

Anchorage at the Isles of Shoals, a small archipelago about 6 miles off the New Hampshire and Maine coast. Gosport Harbour lies between Star, Cedar and Smuttynose islands.

Mooring buoys
Pontoon

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Gosport Harbour is the only sheltered water in the group, open to winds from west through south-east. The bottom is rock and kelp with poor holding, so most visitors pick up a mooring rather than anchor. The Portsmouth Yacht Club maintains six moorings marked PYC and lets visiting boats use a vacant one if the owner is not aboard.

Practical

No fuel or shore facilities for visiting yachts. On warm weekends day boats from Portsmouth and Kittery fill the harbour and boats raft several abreast, so arrive early. Rye Harbor lies 6.3 miles west and Wentworth by the Sea Marina 7 miles north-west for resupply.

Ashore

Star Island is open to visitors by tender from 10am to dusk on weekdays and to 3.30pm at weekends. The island carries the Oceanic Hotel and a Unitarian conference centre, with walking paths around the shoreline. Smuttynose Island, to the north, is also open to walkers.

History

The Isles of Shoals supported a cod fishing community from the 1600s, with Gosport village on Star Island. The poet Celia Thaxter grew up here and made the islands known through her writing in the late 19th century.