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We began the day with a narrated bus tour of the town. One of the interesting differences here compared to Camden is that the big homes owned by the sea captains were not located on the seashore. They were located away from the shore. I am not sure why.

Perhaps it was because the shoreline was very industrialized with ship builders and processing plants for limestone. The local saying is “Camden by the sea; Rockland by the smell”.  As it turns out there are a tremendous number of limestone quarries in the area and the mined product was brought to the shore for further processing and then shipped to other parts of the world. We were driven past quite a few old quarries which are now filled with water and have become local swimming and fishing holes. Some quarries are 1/2 mile deep. I saw pictures of how they looked when mined in the 1800s by hand and horses used to carry the product out of the quarries. Limestone was the big business in Rockland.

Not being a big town (again about 5,000 people) the tour did not last very long. We were then driven the the now famous Farnsworth & Wyeth Museum where a docent led us on a guided tour of the exhibits. It turns out that Mrs. Farnsworth left several millions of dollars to the city after she passed in the 1930s to create an art museum. Later the Wyeth family donated many of Andrew Wyeth’s artwork to the Museum because his family had a summer home in the area and most of his watercolors  featured subjects in the area. I was amazed to see many of his pencil sketches he made prior to making a finished watercolor. Those sketches were works of art themselves-detailed in every way. Many of his watercolor originals are located here but his most recognized painting ” Christina’s World”  is owned by the NY Metropolitan Art Museum. Andrew’ s son, Jamie, also has a summer place here and I would imagine some of his work will eventually end up in this museum some day. Ironically 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Andrew Wyeth’s birthday and there is a special exhibit on display. If you recall we saw the special 100 year exhibit of John F. Kennedy a few days ago. There was really not enough time to really experience the museum as we were scheduled to meet at Sharp’s Point for our special group lobster boil.

We were greeted by a 4 piece folk band in a big tent with picnic seating. Nearby was a big wood fire blazing away with huge pots of boiling water. As we arrived the staff began throwing in dozens of lobsters and topping them with mussels, corn on the cob, seaweed and burlap. Twenty minutes later we were called to collect a plate of steamed lobster, corn on the cob, melted butter, mussels, cole slaw and potato salad. Ship staff showed us how to clean the lobster. Bibs were supplied and were needed as it became a messy proposition getting that delicious lobster meat out of the shell. Staff wandered around offering seconds to those who wanted them. Needless to say the lobster was tender and sweet. I was surprised at how good and mild the mussels tasted as they were fairly large in size. It was a wonderful, abiet messy meal.

Some people left to go to a transportation museum in town while we stayed around to visit with our host, Captain Jim Sharp, who proceeded to give us a narrated tour of his personal maritime museum that he built here. We all were blown away by the quality of the exhibits he has put together on boat building in olden days, lobster fishing equipment, sea navigation, tools used for building boats, ship models, and historical pictures of famous schooners built in the area. Captain Jim loves to tell stories about the history of maritime technology and his time spent as a schooner builder and sailor. He would have talked for hours had we not had to return to our ship. His maritime museum is truly world class. It was an impressive afternoon.

 

We returned reluctantly to our mother ship where we were treated to an after dinner lecture by Sam Ladley, the historian who led us on the walking tour in Camden. His subject tonight was on Coastal Maine and the lobster industry. The gentlemen is a native and a wealth of knowledge about the area and its history.

 

Maine was originally populated by Europeans who wanted to farm. Unfortunately they quickly learned that there is no soil here (typically 2-3 inches); it got pushed into the ocean during the ice age. People had to turn to fishing. Centuries ago fishing was abundant because of the currents and continental shelf. Early reports said you could “walk across the water on the back of fish”, but, as expected, the area eventually was overfished. The famous Grand Banks and much of the area is closed for fishing as they try to rebuild the fish stock. That will take generations to do.

Sam explained how Maine prospered in the 1820-1830 era because of its ship building expertise and all those trees. Not surprisingly he said at one time there was not a tree left within 20 miles of the coastline; they were all cut down for boats  and for firewood. Eventually the industrial revolution and steam power killed the schooner business here.

Unfortunately, it has been downhill for Maine since those days. One very bright spot however is the lobster industry. Lobster harvest has grown from 20 million pounds/yr to 150 million pounds/yr, mainly because the loss of cod (because of overfishing) permits more lobster eggs to hatch. Sam explained how there is rigid  self-policing by the local lobster fisherman to conserve and maintain this family oriented industry. Yes, there are commercial lobstermen but they are tightly controlled and monitored. Again we could have listened for much longer than he was willing to speak.

The entire day was special- full of new experiences and knowledge.

Awoke to bright sunshine and cloudless skies, the first sunny day in 5 days. So far this place has been as bad as Seattle for having Cloudy weather!  We are loving the cool, crisp weather however and we have not had any rain, only clouds. The locals have told us they have had a lousy spring so far.  Sound familiar?

Our stop today is another of those lovely seaports of Maine-Camden. The population is also around 5,000 and the town is famous for ship building in past centuries. The harbor is larger and more protected than Bar Harbor and the sloping landscape was more conducive to building schooners on shore, then simply sliding them into the water. There are several three masted schooners still in service (for tourist sailings) here in the harbor and they provided a beautiful background as we were motored into the dock area with our ship’s tender once again. The Constellation is too big for the docks here.

We along with 27 other passengers went on a morning walking tour of the town with a local resident, Sam Ladley. Again it was 1.5 marvelously spent hours hearing stories about the shipbuilding industry of the 1800s that thrived here, the stories of sea captains who lived here and sailed from this port, the houses they built here, and the architecture of those houses. Sea captains were some of the first millionaires in the USA as a result of the seafaring career and the houses they built reflected that. One intriguing story told was that when the captain left for his 2-5 year voyage he would leave a silver dollar on the fireplace mantle. Each sailing ship flew on its top mast a pennant identifying who the captain was. Children playing in the yard kept an eye on the open sea and when they saw a ship returning and identified who it was would run to the captains’ home to alert the wife that her husband was returning. In return he/she would be given the silver dollar. Sometimes, however, the captain dies at sea and his pennant was flown on the lower masthead to indicate he was no longer alive (that is where the term “half mast”came from). The child would still run to the house but only say the ship was returning to prepare the wife for the bad news it brought. The child still was given the dollar.

We saw and learned about the park built by Olmsted (designer of Central Park) on the harbor’s shoreline and the new modern library built under the park rather than to add a new modern building.

Sam pointed out a local unpainted shingled home and explained that many people from Scotland settled in the Camden area. Being frugal they felt that using shingles allowed them to avoid having to paint the home, simply allowing Mother Nature to weather the shingles over time. Also they painted the doors and trim the same color as that of their boat. Why buy two different cans of paint?

We also learned that what people call a “widows walk” (that balcony around a chimney on the roof of a home) is not what it was for. It was really a platform for a person (usually the woman as the men were at sea) who often had to douse a chimney fire with a bucket of sand. Climbing a ladder with a bucket of sand and standing on a pitched roof in winter was treacherous so a stable platform made a lot of sense.

The dominant home style of the area was federalist-simple fronts, long homes, often with three sides with nice siding and a hidden side using cheaper materials to save money.

Sam told us about the boat building in the area, which was one of the dominant industries of the 19th century. This area built most of the sailing cargo (2-4 masted schooners) ships of the era. It was amazing to see pictures of the massive ships and how they were built.

After lunch we took the lobster boat tour which included a ride on a real lobster boat. A young couple run this small business and they taught us about lobsters, how they are caught and the rules associated with lobstering in this area. The husband captained the boat and his wife showed us how to tell male from female lobsters, and how to measure if they were of legal style. She answered questions about how many traps you can use, how many you can keep per day, etc. Recreational lobster fisherman can have up to 6 traps per person and there is no limit to how many lobster  you can keep. Surprisingly, the  lobster population is  growing as the cod population (which tended to eat the lobster eggs) is way down.

In the 1900s only poor people ate lobster. They even fed them to prisoners in jail. Farmers loaded them in wagons and used them as fertilizer in their farm fields. Hard to believe, isn’t it!

We pulled up two different lobster traps. There was a small female in one, which they threw back. The second trap had a keepable male. They also had a live tank on board  which held a large clam, a mollusk two different types of local crabs and a really weird tiny spider crab that looked like a tarantula. She passed them all around for us to view.

We made it back to the ship to go to Afternoon tea for the first time. We were curious what snack they might be serving with the tea.

Then it was the usual routine we have become accustomed to: cocktails, dinner and some entertainment. The ship uses local entertainment and tonight we had a singer/guitarist who sounded a lot like James Taylor. By 9:30 the ship’s lounges clear out and the ship becomes quiet- – except for me who sits alone in the lounge (where the wireless signal works) finishing this blog entry. Good night!

We sailed the entire night and arrived at 7AM at our first port of call, Bar Harbor. Despite the storm and fog last night we slept peacefully through the night, suffering no ill effects from the weather. I was surprised how many people reported they had problems last night with handling the rough weather. I have to assume all our travels on the sea has conditioned our bodies to handle rough seas.

It was pretty foggy when we arrived but there were signs that it would lift sometime during the morning. As a result we decided to not cancel our 9AM trip to Acadia National Park which occupies most of the the island (called Mount Desert Island-pronounced correctly as either desert or dessert) where Bar Harbor resides. The population of Bar Harbor is about 5,000; the population of the entire island (connected to the mainland by bridge) is 10,000.

 

 

 

We had to anchor off shore as even our small ship is too big for this port. The ship carries its own 40ft. skiff, that can hold 35 people, is used to shuttle people to/from the ports where dockage is not available. The transfer went smoothly as only 27 people signed up for the morning tour of the park. By the time we reached shore the sun was shining brightly even though the bay was still partially shrouded in fog. In fact it was difficult to see our ship even though it was quite close to shore.

Once on land we met up with a local guide who drove us to three different popular locations in the park, describing the park and what we were seeing as he drove. The first stop was Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in the park with an altitude of 1,530 feet. Those of us from the West said it should be named Cadillac Hill, not Cadillac Mountain. The park was created in 1916 as the Sieur de Monts National Monument. In 1919 it was expanded and renamed Acadia National Park. This all came about because of efforts of the Rockefellers and other wealthy people who had maintained summer property on the island and wanted it preserved for future generations

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The views of the sea from the top of Cadillac Mountian were hindered by the fog blanketing the water, but we were able to see the surrounding countryside. It is heavily wooded and would certainly look magnificent in the autumn when the leaves turned.There are considerable rock formations throughout the park, mostly pink granite.

Our next stop was at the local botanical gardens maintained in the park by local volunteers. It was originally started on the estate of Dr. Abbe, one of the early settlers here. It is just starting to bloom but we got to see yellow ladyslippers, which I have never seen, and many different species of ferns. There are hundreds, if not thousands of flowers, shrubs and trees in the garden.

The last stop was at Thunder Hole, a rock formation at the shoreline which can emit a thunderous noise when wave conditions beat up against a wave created cave on the shoreline. Today our guide said the hole was whispering, not thundering! It still was pretty loud.

We returned to the ship in time for lunch. Stan, Cindy and I returned to the town after lunch to shop and walk around the cute downtown area. I wanted to go mainly to find a reliable WiFi source so I could finish my blog entry from yesterday and get it posted. Yvonne decided to remain on the ship and read her book in the cozy lounge while we were gone. I managed to find a bar where I sat with a local Bar Harbor ale and completed that blog entry.

As I completed my walk around the town to take some pictures I witnessed the fog advancing and retreating on the bay and I was reminded of the famous Carl Sandburg poem called “Fog”:

“The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on”.

By the time I returned to the ship the fog had finally burned off the bay and the whole surrounding area was in bright sunlight for us to enjoy the many offshore islands near the town. The town is indeed one of those iconic New England towns with lobster boats bobbing in the bay and brightly colored homes and businesses on the shore.

The ship cocktail hour starts promptly at 5:30 and when I saw the staff member carrying in a platter of deviled eggs I commented to her how we liked them. She proceeded to tell me that on this ship they are “angel eggs”, not deviled eggs and we all got a good laugh.

Tonight’s after dinner entertainment was a local lady singer/pianist who took us on a musical history tour, playing songs from the early 1900s to the present. She focused on those written by famous composers who wrote songs we all remember. It was truly a walk down memory lane.

By the way, today is Stan and Cindy’s 54th wedding anniversary and we all wished them many more years of wedded bliss!

By the way logged 10,457 steps today. I earned that ice cream sundae I had during the piano recital!

Background:  We are boarding our ship, “Constellation” today. It is the newest ship in the American Cruise Line fleet, launched earlier this year. It is my understanding that our trip is the fourth trip since it was launched so it should have that “new car smell” to it. Hopefully the “bugs” will have been worked out on the last trip! The ship only holds 175 passengers so it will be the smallest ocean-going ship we have traveled on. Yvonne says it will seem more like the river boats we have sailed on in Europe. None of us have traveled with American Cruise Lines before. They focus on cruises on the east coast, Mississippi river, Puget Sound and the Columbia River out our way.  Interestingly one of their ships stops in our town (Poulsbo) during its summer cruise around Puget Sound.

Real time:  We were able to sleep in this morning as we plan to check out of the hotel at 10AM and head directly to our home for the next ten days, the “American Constellation”, the brand new ship of American Cruise Lines. We will be boarding any time after 10:30 which is early for cruise ships. The reason is we plan to leave Boston at 1:30 PM.

This will be a totally new adventure for all of us as neither of us have sailed with this company and we do not know what to expect in terms of accommodations, service, and quality of food and tours. Stan selected it because of its itinerary, exploring the coastline of Maine, something none of us have done.

Our boarding pier was at a small local marina rather than the normal big cruise terminal. Once on-board we quickly learned that the staff was quite young and for many this was their first experience working on a cruise ship. Even the cruise director looked like he was 25 years old. What they lacked in experience they made up with enthusiasm to make sure our every need was met. I certainly hope this attitude continues throughout the trip. We did learn that we only have 110 passengers on this particular trip, a fairly light load.

Our rooms were not quite ready and they invited us to go to the lounge where there were snacks, soft drinks and even Sangria. We decided to wander around the ship to explore our new surroundings. Everything was new and shiny, as you would expect. A very pleasant surprise was an upper deck lounge that had lovely “Florida” type furniture and color schemes. On the same deck was an outside patio with more of the rattan furniture with bright colored cushions. We all felt it was dramatic. The top sun deck sported some lounge chairs and a small putting green. There is a small but well equipped exercise room and a free laundry area. There are several small lounges available for games and/or reading and a “tiny” library with a few books. There are also two computers available for use in one of the lounges. There is NO gift shop! When it comes to amenities this ship resembles a river cruise ship more than an ocean liner.

Our rooms are quite large by cruise ship standards with a nice balcony with chairs and a table. There is wireless on-board BUT I soon found it difficult to log in and the staff did say they are still modifying it to give proper coverage and service. Oh oh! Blog entries may become sporadic. In fact I am composing this entry off-line hoping I can publish it when we get to our first port of call-Bar Harbor.

There was a brief safety drill, shown on the TVs in our room so we did not have to muster as we do on bigger ships. Before we knew it it was time for lunch which is served every day at 12:30. Breakfast is at 7:30-9:00, cocktail hour at 5:30, and dinner at 6:30. At 10AM the crew wanders around the ship with fresh cookies and there is tea time at 3:30 if you get hungry before dinner. Lunch today offered two appetizers, three choices of entrée and two desserts. All were deemed very good. An interesting approach to lunch and dinner is we will be given a menu for both at breakfast and asked to make choices so the chef can prepare the proper number of dishes. Another interesting touch is that they offer 1/2 portions for dinner if you wish. This makes a lot of sense to us as it saves food from being wasted.

We attended a briefing at 3:30 where we met the heads of the various departments and the tour director explained the tours that are being offered this trip. Surprisingly, even though this is an expensive trip there is an additional charge for tours. Some high-end cruise lines include tours at no additional cost.

By the time we unpacked and grabbed a quick nap it was time for cocktails. After leaving Boston we ran into some 6 foot seas and fog and some people reacted to the conditions, including Cindy who chose to skip both the cocktails and later dinner.

Dinner was excellent. I chose the seafood platter which include a 1 pound+ lobster, shrimp, boiled potatoes and corn. After two days of Lobster in Boston, Yvonne chose a tenderloin medallion with a lobster cake side. Cheesecake and red velvet cake were offered for dessert. Ample selections of wine and beer were offered with the meal. Both lunch and dinner were an excellent food start to the trip!

There was a special presentation made by the activities director featuring a film on Maine. She also told us about several book selections that we might consider reading about the area, promising to give us copies of her suggestions. The video does promise that Maine will indeed be spectacular when it comes to scenery. There was another cute twist to the entertainment. The staff offered root beer floats, ice cream sundaes and popcorn to keep us occupied while we watched the film.

Thick fog, fog horns and a night time lightening and thunder storm ended our first day of this new adventure. Hopefully you will read this blog tomorrow when we land at Bar Harbor, Maine where we will be visiting Acadia National Park.

At the suggestion of Stan and Cindy we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy presidential library here in the Boston area. Yvonne and I have never seen it and it has been many years since Stan and Cindy last took their children there. We had enjoyed visiting the Lyndon B. Johnson library in Texas last year and thought we would also enjoy seeing this one as we were big fans of Jack Kennedy and were saddened at losing him in 1963.

His Presidential library is located in Dorchester, MA,  basically a suburb of Boston. I suggested we “Uber” there as Stan and Cindy had never used the service. We are also novices but have used them several times in Seattle. It worked flawlessly. Most regular Uber cars are now small vehicles like a Prius, I decided to try getting the larger Uber XL so the four of us could be more easily accommodated. We ended up with a minivan and a Honda pilot for our two trips which was great.

We arrived at the Presidential library about the same time as a bus load of high schoolers on a field trip-great!  The good news is we joined them for the initial 20 minute movie describing JFK’s life from birth to the run for the presidency. Prior to the viewing the head of the educational component of the library gave a verbal briefing about the library which turned out to be educational for us. We learned that there are now 13 Presidential libraries. The first was established  by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to save important papers generated by the office. Because of its significance Congress later mandated that all Presidents had to relinquish their documents for prosperity and we now have Presidential libraries scattered around the country. Surprisingly while visiting this one Yvonne suggested we should try to see the other 11 libraries-another bucket list for me to complete!  To be honest both of us found visiting them very fulfilling and worthwhile.

The JFK Library focuses on the time period from when he launched his presidential campaign until his death in office. It is very well done with short video clips, documents and memorabilia from the era.  Having lived through his term we felt a closeness to his story. Seeing more of the details of this period of our history gave us a better perspective of the times and the story behind the story, like the race to the moon, the famous Berlin Wall speech, the Cuban missile crisis and the civil rights issues with George Wallace.

It was fascinating to see the actual typed speeches (with scribbled mark-ups), hand scribbled notes (bad penmanship) and secretly recorded tapes during the missile crisis with Russia. I was taken aback by how close we came to a possible nuclear shoot-out during that crisis.

There was also a fair amount dedicated to Jackie, her clothing, efforts to modernize the White House, White House dinners and interaction with foreign dignitaries and the gifts presented to the Kennedys. By the way, her penmanship was really bad; I had great trouble reading it and had to rely on “translations” provided on the placards. There is also a section dedicated to Robert Kennedy, who I thought would had been a good president. I had not realized he was only 35 years old when made the Attorney General by his brother.

Yesterday was JFK’s 100th birthday and they opened a new, special exhibit called JFK100, featuring 100 different artifacts from his life including never before seen baby photos, high school report cards, passport information, military information about PT109, and other meaningful aspects of his life. It was fascinating.  These items will only be displayed for one year.

We spent over three hours at the library and enjoyed every minute of it. It is truly worth seeing it if you are in the area.

After an hour to refresh we then headed to the “North End”, home to the Italian community of Boston for some sightseeing, dinner at one of the many small family owned Italian restaurants and a visit to one of the several famous Italian bakeries for a cannoli and other Italian pastries. We revisited the area around the Old North Church where Paul Revere instructed the sexton to put two lanterns in the belfry to warn people that the British were coming by sea. Nearby was an old store front where we watched a demonstration on chocolate making in the 18th century. There was also a colonial print shop where we saw how printing was done in colonial times and heard the story of how the first Declaration of Independence was printed in Boston, not Philadelphia and that the true day of signing was July 2, 1776 not July 4 which we celebrate.

For dinner we chose a small Italian restaurant called Panza at the recommendation of our hotel and backed up by Yelp and Travel Advisor. It was a great choice and we were extremely happy with our meals.

We purposely avoided ordering dessert as we wanted to stop at one of those awesome Italian bakeries in the area. The one we chose, Bova’s, happens to be open 24 hours a day! We left with a cannoli, a cream puff, an eclair and a pastry called  “sfogliatelle”, a delicate dough filled with ricotta, almond paste and lemon flavoring. It dates back to 17th century Italy. I will report on them tomorrow as they will be our breakfast!

On our way to the bakery we passed a small shop where we discovered William Carlton, owner of classic caps. This young man was sitting at a very old Singer sewing machine making handmade “newsboy caps”. We were intrigued and wandered in to talk to him and ended up buying a couple for gifts. He is self-taught and creates unique monogrammed hats. It was a great fun find.

It turned out to be quite an eventful day filled with both new and old adventures, capped with a delicious Italian dinner. We should sleep well tonight.

We board our ship tomorrow morning and set sail at 1:30 PM.