Port Clyde–Monhegan ferry: the year-round mail run on the Laura B and Elizabeth Ann

Monhegan Boat Line has been sailing from Port Clyde to Monhegan since 1914, MaineDOT records, which makes the company older than either of its boats. For most of that century the run has been less a tourist trip than a utility: mail, groceries, fuel and freight reach the island on it, and the island's waste goes back the same way. Summer visitors pay for much of that. A December 2025 report to the Maine Legislature put it plainly: the mail contract alone does not cover the winter trips, and summer fares make up the difference.

The geography explains the arrangement. Monhegan lies about ten nautical miles off the mainland, in Lincoln County, with no bridge and no cars allowed for visitors. In summer two other private boats join in, Hardy Boat Cruises from New Harbor and Balmy Days Cruises from Boothbay Harbor. Outside the summer the Port Clyde boat sails alone, the same split you find at the Cranberry Isles, where one company keeps going after its seasonal rival ties up.

Right now the fall table is running: two round trips every day until October 12, then a single morning boat on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to the end of the year.

Two round trips a day until October 12, then a Monday–Wednesday–Friday boat

Monhegan Boat Line 2026 Season table, current period September 30 – October 12, then October 13 and October 14 – December 31, 2026; read from the operator and its booking calendar on October 7, 2026. No 2027 table has been published yet.   Monhegan Boat Line — Ferry Schedule, 2026 Season · 2026-10-07

$52 round trip, booked ahead, with parking and baggage on top

Every seat is reserved and paid for in advance, online or by phone; the line takes cash, local checks and most major cards. A child fare applies from age 2 through 12, and the round trip is the better deal for adults only: a single costs $35 each way, a return $52.

2026 Season fares as posted on the schedule page and repeated in the operator's booking system, read October 7, 2026   Monhegan Boat Line — Ferry Schedule (fares) · 2026-10-07

A shared dock on the St. George peninsula and a single island wharf

Neither end is owned by the state. The Port Clyde pier is private, and the Monhegan wharf belongs to the plantation, which is raising money to rebuild it and to repair a breakwater damaged in the January 2024 storms.

Past Marshall Point and out across Muscongus Bay

The boat leaves Port Clyde harbor beside the Marshall Point light, which has marked the entrance since 1833, and heads roughly ten nautical miles out through Muscongus Bay to Monhegan Harbor on the island's west side. On the way home the captains often run close to Seal Rock. Most of the passage is open water, and MaineDOT singles out weather cancellations after October as the island's main reliability worry.

Stickers, parking passes and the half-hour cutoff

• Seats go at the half hour

  A paid seat is held only until 30 minutes before departure. After that it counts as a no-show, is not refunded and can go to someone on the waiting list. Boarding starts 15 minutes before the boat leaves.

• Every bag gets a sticker

  Carry-ons included. Two pieces of 50 lb or less ride free with each ticket; stickers come from the ticket office, and the operator suggests arriving a full hour early to park, unload and label everything.

• Pick up the pass first

  Dock parking is $10 a day, but the car needs a pass from the ticket office or the parking staff before you board. The line accepts no liability for damage or theft.

• Laura B or Elizabeth Ann

  The 1943 Laura B, a former U.S. Army boat, takes 70 minutes and hauls the island's freight. The 1995 Elizabeth Ann needs 55 and has a heated cabin and two restrooms.

• Winter leaves little slack

  From October 14 there is one boat on three days a week. If weather cancels it, the next chance may be two days later, so overnight visitors should allow a spare day.

• Dogs pay their own way

  Each pet is $10. Once ashore there are 17 miles of trails, cliffs along the east shore and a museum up by the lighthouse.

A wartime Army boat, a state study and an aging wharf

The boats carry their own history. The Laura B was built in 1943 as the U.S. Army's T-57 and spent the Second World War in the Pacific as a patrol and supply boat, with two .50-caliber machine guns on deck. She came to Maine in 1946, hauled lobsters from Vinalhaven to Boston and New York for a few years, and has worked the Monhegan run for about half a century. The Elizabeth Ann, launched in 1995, is the more comfortable of the pair. Port Clyde has its own story, too: a shipbuilding village in the early 1800s, then a fishing and sardine-canning one, and still a working lobster harbor.

The question of who should run the island's boat keeps coming back. In 2025 the Legislature passed LD 1186, asking MaineDOT to study a state ferry to Monhegan. The answer in December was no: two new 149-passenger boats and a rebuilt wharf would cost an estimated $20.3 million to start, and a state service would probably run fewer summer trips than the three private lines do now. Islanders still want more boats from January to March. Compare the publicly funded transit district that serves Peaks Island out of Portland, or the non-profit Isle au Haut mailboat farther up the coast, which leans on town, state and National Park Service support.

What travelers ask before booking the Monhegan boat