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Adults and kids with disabilities set sail from Bar Harbor

“I really enjoy it because it’s relaxing,” Ray, a passenger on the Margaret Todd schooner, said.

BAR HARBOR, Maine — Over 100 children and adults with autism and developmental disabilities set sail from Bar Harbor Friday. 

Downeast Horizons chartered the four-maste, 151-foot schooner, the Margaret Todd, for the afternoon.

“They get to enjoy something that few people actually do,” Tony Zambrano, the executive director at Downeast Horizons, said. 

The schooner captain took his sailors for a tour around Frenchman’s Bay to enjoy the nice weather and welcomed breeze.

“Some of these folks may be uneasy and nervous about these kinds of things, and our staff is here to help them so they can get used to this kind of stuff... then one day, perhaps, they can do it without our staff here,” Zambrano said.

Zambrano hopes that by taking the group out on excursions similar to their trip on the Margaret Todd, they will be more comfortable going on their own adventures.

“We are trying to normalize [this] in a way that they can do these kinds of activities, without their staff, without any help from anybody, and then they can just be like you and I, enjoying Maine the way it ought to be,” Zambrano said.

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