Port Clyde Draggers

Port Clyde is best known as the base for the Monhegan Boat Line and for the Marshall Point Light to which Forrest Gump ran. But Port Clyde is also home to the largest ground fishing fleet on the Maine coast.

As with all fishing communities there are memories of men lost at sea. 11 since 1941 (the last in 2005) are remembered at the Port Clyde Fishermen's Memorial at the Lighthouse.

The fleet is now a dozen or less. It is hoped that the new sector limits plan (replacing overall catch and day limits) will more rationally use the resource. And help preserve the fishery.

The Port Clyde Fishermen's Co-op markets its catch through Port Clyde Fresh Catch, built on the community farming model, and local pride.

Below are Skipper, Tide Walker, Leslie & Jessica, High Roller, and Iroquois.

The whole slide show is HERE.

Coast Guard Station Rockland

We missed the Eagle - it was pouring all day and I was the only one with rain gear. But when the weather cleared, we got the tour of Coast Guard Station Rockland. Here is the slide show.

Towing - it's not just for tugboats

Today my father, my friend John, and I grabbed Geraldine - a 23 foot hard-top pickup truck of a boat - in Thomaston and went downriver on the St. George. 7 miles south at Otis Cove we picked up a disabled 18' Parker for Jeff's Marine. (At Otis Cove we also checked out Art Tibbetts, who started on a new dock yesterday and had made substantial progress by this evening.)

We continued south to Maple Juice Cove to pick up Grace, my 18' 1957 Lyman which (despite a new blade cutter) had a lobster pot line wrapped around the prop.

We towed the two 8 miles north on the St. George River to the public landing in Thomaston where trailers awaited. Mine was on the trailer just long enough to cut the line. Then over to Jeff's to pick up Toaster, my 18' O'Day to tow it south to Maple Juice Cove. When we got to MJC we saw just behind us beautiful old sailboat pulling in for the might to its placid anchorage. I'll try to get the name in the morning.

One of these days I have to get to work. But it may not be tomorrow.

A shot from Lisa's spot

Hupper Island and Little Caldwell Island, from Stones Point Road, Pleasant Point Rd., Cushing, ME

The link to Lisa's shot is here.

Lady Debbie

Lyman Morse Boatbuilding, f/k/a Morse Boatbuilding is a builder of fine boats, and service yard for anybody who comes by with a boat - like Lady Debbie- a working dragger, one of the few on the Mid-Coast. Wood is good. It lasts a long time and if something breaks you just lay in another piece of wood.

Click on photos to enlarge thumbnails.

90th birthday/retirement party for Thomaston boat builder

"It's the excitement and the honor of seeing one after it's built in the water floating away," he said. "You see them from the time they lay the keel till they are finished and sailing away."

When asked if he will miss it, he nodded.

That's Richard Benner on the occasion of his 90th birthday/retirement party at Lyman Morse Boatbuilding Co., the brilliant yard that dominates the harbor in the town where an Englishman first staked a claim of right to New England (first possession was the flawed theory).

Lyman Morse does it all. Most of the work is building and servicing rich men's sailboats - but it is a full service boat yard that takes all the work they can get, as the post above this one shows.

Benner is profiled in the Herald Gazette, here.

But this is Richard Benner's day and here he is with Cabot Lyman who bought Morse boatbuilding 32 years ago and has made it thrive - while doing a lot of sailing, including a circumnavigation.

Peloton riding through sunflowers

Stage 11 - Tour de France.

Armstrong is in 3rd overall. A great vindication of his championship credentials - at 37 - after four years away from competition. Interesting that he was a 2:50 marathoner.

1 800 Own Dock

Want to have your own dock at your dream house on the rockbound Mid-Coast of Maine? Art Tibbets of Thomaston is your man. He's got all the fixins and they travel as a unit.

Here he is southbound on the St. George River, at Otis Cove, just north of Port Clyde.

Link to slide show is here

As always, click on a picture to expand the thumbnail.

Russ, Yoshi, and James Explore the Back River

James showed Yoshi and Russ the way down the Back River, around Heron Bend to James Meadow and back home.




The slideshow is here.

Issuma: Whale alongside

Richard Hudson and Issuma are underway, southbound sailing close to the coast of Brazil. Here is what they encountered yesterday. You are looking through the triangle formed by the main sheet at the aft end of the boom. The red piece is, I assume, the wind vane for the self-steering mechanism.