Things to do nearCasco Bay

Casco Bay stretches along the southern Maine coast, sheltering more than two hundred islands, ledges, and islets between Cape Small to the north and Cape Elizabeth to the south. The largest and most accessible of these, known collectively as the Calendar Islands, have supported fishing communities, summer colonies, and small farms for centuries. Indigenous Wabanaki people fished and traveled these waters long before European settlers arrived in the early seventeenth century, and the bay remained a vital commercial corridor through the age of sail and into the industrial era.

Today Casco Bay is best experienced from the water. The Casco Bay Lines ferry service, one of the oldest continuously operating ferry systems in the United States, connects Portland to the inhabited islands of Peaks, Great Diamond, Little Diamond, Long, Chebeague, and Cliff. Each island has its own character, from the bicycle-friendly lanes of Peaks Island to the quieter coves of Cliff Island, where summer cottages sit among the spruce and birch.

On shore, the bay shapes daily life in Portland in tangible ways. The working waterfront near the Old Port remains active with lobster boats, draggers, and pleasure craft, and the smell of salt and diesel is as much a part of the neighborhood as its cobblestone streets. Seafood pulled directly from these waters appears on menus across the city, with steamed clams, crab cakes, and freshly caught finfish reflecting the bay's continuing productivity.

Casco Bay also draws sea kayakers, sailors, and wildlife watchers who come for the harbor seals, nesting seabirds, and the occasional minke whale spotted beyond the outer islands. For anyone drawn to working coastlines where natural beauty and maritime tradition exist side by side, Casco Bay offers an experience that is distinctly and irreplaceably Maine.