But still a good time.
On making landfall in Maine at Tenant’s Harbor we promptly…went to bed. Hey, we were up all night. But we did get up after a few hours and go ashore. It’s a small place with not a lot in walking distance from the docks but still nice. We saw our first harbor seal to the delight of all, and saw several of them as we motored around the harbor. After dinner in “town” (at least I think it was town, sometimes approaching someplace from the water you sort of miss the “town” if you don’t walk far enough) and some walking about in the misty rain we decided perhaps this was not a long term stopover, especially as it was supposed to rain in another day or so and there wasn’t a lot around to do.
After consulting the cruising guides and making our best guess at the weather we figured that Rockland had enough going on for us to weather out the rain. Heading out on Tuesday morning we decided a trip up the colorfully named “Muscle Ridge Channel” was the best way to go. That turned out to be a good choice. Though narrow and twisty in parts eventually it widened enough and the wind cooperated to be able to set some sail. It is a beautiful and scenic passage, and the view of Owl’s Head Light was spectacular. Outside of dodging approximately 347,000 lobster pots on the roughly eight mile trip it was uneventful and pleasant.
Rockland gave us our first feel for how much more informal things are in Maine. We decided to pick up a mooring (unusual for us) because we didn’t like the incoming weather or the anchoring options. Our first attempts to call for a mooring over VHF failed, and we finally reached Beggar’s Wharf Marina via cell phone. As it turns out they didn’t have anyone in Rockland that day but I spoke with the owner who gave me directions to an empty mooring and we made payment arrangements. We never actually met, and I never laid eyes on anyone from Beggar’s Wharf but we managed to hand off everything. As the name might lead you to believe it’s not a fancy place but there are heads & showers if you need them, and a “lounge” where you can play foosball & pool and surf the web on Clinton-era PC’s that do work. And their moorings are reasonable and I received a ton of good local information from the gentleman I spoke with.
Rockland has some decent places to eat and some nice museums. We availed ourselves to a number of these on Wednesday when the rain came down in a vengeance. We visited the Puffin Project which was interesting (if small), the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Rockland Lighthouse Museum.
I’m not an art guy at all, in fact my appreciation for art is in general only marginally more enlightened than Beavis and Butthead watching music videos (“ooh, nice hanging dead fish…aah, nice fat guy in a ruffled collar” was the gist of my running mental commentary walking through the Louvre). Generally, it’s not my thing especially paintings. But the Farnsworth was still a cool place, there’s a lot of local Maine flavor and some nice Wyeth galleries there (I like Wyeth…his paintings look like things and are pretty, which is helpful for the art ignoramus like me who is left cold by the more esoteric stuff). I especially liked the “studies” from Wyeth where you could see his work in progress from the sketches that became some of the finished works in the gallery.
The Rockland Lighthouse Museum is more my speed. I actually learned how a Fresnel lens worked which is a cool bit of physics I won’t get into here – suffice it to say ingenious for the time it was invented and what it did. It’s a fascinating place with a lot of good background on the how’s and why’s of our government navigational systems and I recommend it to any mariner.
We ended the day racing through the rain, arriving soaked to the skin at the Beggar’s Wharf building. While we waited for the rain to abate (it never did…) we warmed up inside playing foosball and pool by the light of the Christmas strings run all over the building. It was fun family time – really an unexpected hour of hard laughs and good times with the kids and in many was the highlight of the day.
