Trip to Maine - Post #2: Taking a Boat Ride

The first leg of our trip to Maine took us to Portland, the largest city in Maine with a population of 65-70 thousand people. Portland itself is beautiful, although be prepared to pay a premium for parking if you park down along the coast line. I've never paid this much in parking in a city this size before! Parking costs rivaled that of larger cities. Our first full day in Portland took us on a boat ride in the bay. There are a ton of options for boat rides from large schooners to smaller boats. We took a small, 6 person boat, through a wonderful operation called Ribbit Adventures.

Ribbit Adventures is run by a husband/wife team and they offer very personalized tours. Our family of 4 were the only 4 guest passengers on the boat for our trip. They take you around the bay, pointing out sites, and offering a history lesson on the area. We were able to go much farther and see much more than we would have on one of the larger boats. They took us out to a small island that sometimes has seals basking in the Sun. We lucked out and there were several seals basking!

Super cool! Most of the boating businesses have high Trip Advisor ratings, but as of this rating, Ribbit Adventures has 92 reviews and every one of them is a 5 star rating! Although you can probably get an excellent boating experience with many other companies, I can attest that Ribbit Adventures is EXCELLENT!