A-sailing we went...

Work has slowed down a bit now that the summer people and the autumn leaf peekers have mostly gone back home for a while, so I find myself taking back up with my poor neglected blog. If you like your blog posts fresh and up to the minute, then you had better look for another, this post is not for you! But if you're like me, and love anything historical, well then, read on.

When we first talked about taking this trip to Maine last September, it didn't even occur to me that we might be able to go sailing. But earlier in the year, I had gotten together with some friends in North Carolina, and we did just that. So much fun being under sail after so many years. So when the trip was getting closer and we started actually making plans for what we were going to do, I did some searching online and found that, yes indeed, we could go sailing. The only problem would be choosing which of the many boats for hire we wanted to go on.

The craft we settled on was the Surprise, a beautiful century old windjammer, skippered and crewed by a pair of former teachers.

  

       

                                                                

They have been sailing together for years, so along with a beautiful day on Penobscot Bay, we got a bit of sailing instruction and a lot of stories. Probably not all completely true... at least according to them!

Captain Jack (yes, that's really his name) always asks one of the passengers to volunteer to help raise the mainsail. I think this guy was the closest, so he got recruited for the job.

 

Curtis Island Lighthouse

   

Being there in late September, we thought to miss the summer crowds, but the area was still pretty busy with other vacationers. We wanted to get a morning sail, so we got to town early to miss the crowds, found a parking spot and walked down to the docks to get our tickets.



                         

                                       
                 
 

We spent the intervening time wandering around town, looking in some of the shops, and just generally admiring the lovely old buildings.



   



 

In front of one shop we met this sweet Lab waiting patiently for his owner, then saw him again on the docks when we went back for our sail.

   


The boat itself, being wood, reminded me of sailing on my cousin's boat on Lake Charlevoix and Lake Michigan back in the 70's.



This outing was much more sedate, however, than some of those past trips I remember, as the Surprise takes quite a few passengers on each trip.



You can't just go zipping along and heeling with that many people aboard, some of whom may never have been on a sailboat before. So you couldn't exactly call it exciting, but it was fun, and a beautiful day, and any time out on the water is a good time.

                                                                       

                                     



First mate Barbara was nice enough to take a photo of us, and she got a nice shot on the first try. I am really bad at self photos, unless I can find a spot to set the camera down and use the timer, and that wasn't going to happen on the boat!


  

Well  this post, I believe, has more than enough photos, so I will save the afternoon's excursion for the next post. I promise it won't be another seven months! (If you still want more, clicking on any of the photos will take you to my Flickr albums).

Rain in Maine and lobster BLT's

Well, really, has it been over two months since I posted the last installment about our Maine trip? Work and tax season do get in the way of blogging. Or maybe I am just trying to make the trip last longer. At any rate, our second day in Maine was forecast for rain, at least in the morning, so we put off the sailing until Saturday and did a little exploring in Rockland and Belfast.

 

Rockland has a lighthouse museum, (and I think some of my five readers know that I love lighthouses), so our thought was, what better place to go when it's raining. I think we must have gotten there soon after opening as we were the only patrons when we arrived. The docent was a friendly sort and upon finding out we are from Michigan, she immediately told me that we have the most lighthouses of all the states. Which I wasn't surprised to hear, but I wouldn't have said it myself, not knowing for sure if it was true. My head is full of useless trivia, but that little fact was not one of them. Ah, but it is now.



   

We spent a wonderful couple of hours perusing all the lighthouse artifacts, the Fresnel lenses, and the miscellaneous histories of lighthouses and lifesaving stations. The histories of the life saving crews are especially arresting when you read  about the conditions that they necessarily had to work in and the primitive (to our modern thinking) equipment they used. I was a bit surprised to see an old picture of the Charlevoix lifesaving station, which is very near our home, and I believe still in use by the Coast Guard. Funny that I had to go to Maine to find this out.

 

On our way out, we did our bit to support the museum by buying a couple of books and a linen calendar towel in the gift shop. I still remember my grandmother sending one of these to Mom each year; after the year was up, it would be put to use drying dishes, linen being the best thing for that job. So you could say that was a bit of a sentimental purchase. Or just an impulse buy. It does look nice in my kitchen though.



The museum is housed in the same building as the Chamber of Commerce.  We spoke to the lady manning the desk about eating establishments, it being lunchtime. She gave us a few recommendations, but one sounded irresistable, The Brass Compass.  According to her, the owner had competed in a throw down with Bobby Flay and won the contest, with her signature lobster BLT. Well, how could we not go check that out. Plus it was only a block away, so we just walked over.





There was a big banner out front proclaiming her victory over Mr. Flay, so of course it was crowded, with people lined up in the cramped entry way waiting for a table. Finally the owner walked over to one large table (obviously full of people she knew, and they were done with their meal) and nicely kicked them out as she had paying customers lined up waiting to buy lunch! It being a large table, and just the two of us, the waitress asked if we minded sharing with the two behind us in line. Not a problem, so down we all sat, happy to be that much closer to lunch. Rob ordered the sandwich (of course he did, it has bacon on it) and I got the crab cakes. Well you can't have lobster every meal. I tried the sandwich and it was pretty amazing, but truthfully I liked the crab cakes better.

   

After this fine meal, we drove back up the coast, or down east as they say there, to Belfast. There were some carvings there that a friend had photographed on her trip there that I wanted to see. It is an old town, being settled before the Revolutionary War so it has many architecturally interesting buildings, a photographer's paradise! We wandered in and out of some of the shops, but mainly just walked around. With me taking pics of course.

 

   

A lady stopped to talk while I was photographing one building, she noticed that the top of the building had a celtic cross, and told me all about a celtic cross in a gift shop down the street that I just had to see. We did walk down there, and the shop did have some interesting items for sale, but the best thing was this chair situated near the front door for those not so interested in the interesting items for sale.

 

    

We had eaten our dinner in Belfast the night before so we headed back south towards the inn, stopping in Camden for supper at Cappy's, where Rob and the waiter had a fine time discussing the merits of the myriad beers served there. Attempting to eat a light dinner, we both ordered the clam chowder. It was delicious and unbelievably filling, but we persevered and ordered the Maine blueberry pie. Now if you have ever tasted my mother's blueberry (or huckleberry as we have always mistakenly called it) pie, you would understand that the bar is set pretty high for me when it comes to that dish, and sadly, this restaurant's pie did not measure up. So I left somewhat disappointed, but really, it was never a fair contest.

   

Tomorrow... we go sailing.