Day Nine

Day 9

We got up the next morning.  Ann took a shower, packed and then, the luxury of Kennebunkport so close she could smell it, said, "Let's get out of this hellhole!"  She had a twinkle in her eye when she said it.  I know that what she really meant to say when you get to the core of her feelings was, "Let's get out of this hellhole!"

I had a quick breakfast of pancakes (because we hadn't yet had enough carbs), bacon (because there is never too much bacon), and delicious scones made by the awesome female staff member (see parenthetical above re carbs).  Ann picked at a scone and watched in awe as I inhaled the pancakes.  We said goodbye to Fred, Cindy and the nice staff and headed off to Kennebunkport.

What is striking about northern Maine is how dirt poor it is.  There are pockets of relative prosperity (canoe stores, coffee shops, real estate brokers) around tourist areas like Moosehead Lake, but in general it is very impoverished.  Interestingly, the impoverished Mainers in this area do not have enough money to shingle the roof or fix the broken windows in their houses but seem to have plenty of money for snowmobiles, boats and ATVs.  We saw one family of enormous, toothless people riding six ATVs across the road to their house, which had a caved-in roof.

On the way south to Kennebunkport I challenged Ann to a new punching game--Subarus.  People in New England are crazy about Subarus.  I think if you did a pie chart of the average New Englander's brain you would find that about a third of it is given over to Subarus--exceeded only by Dunkin' Donuts and the Red Sox which takes up the other two thirds.  I was pretty good at the Subaru punching game and Ann very quickly claimed that her shoulder was getting black and blue, that I was acting immature and that, once again, she was a delicate flower.  What a buzz kill.

Typical New England Subaru (Democrat Version)

Donuts for Votes Scandal in New England

They start them early!

We drove for several hours through beautiful scenery and poverty before coming to Kennebunkport.  At Kennebunkport the poverty quickly gave way to wealth, as evidenced by lots of large waterfront summer houses, nice restaurants, art galleries and jewelry shops.  Ann had found us a nice hotel on the water near the harbor.  She seemed happy with the pillows, sheets, fancy bathroom, etc.

The hotel had canoes that we could take out and paddle around the harbor.  After unpacking we hopped in a canoe and explored the harbor.  On the way back to the hotel, a huge tourist boat that took up most of the channel was coming upstream while we were going downstream.  Ann took this to mean that we and our canoe would be run over, crushed and ground up in the propeller of the tourist boat and the only way out of our predicament was for her to freak out and start yelling at her husband.  Apparently it worked because the tourist boat passed by us harmlessly and the captain gave us a friendly wave.

The Harbor from our Hotel

When we got back to the hotel we decided to go on a walk around town.  We walked down the east side of the harbor to the waterfront, checking out restaurant menus on the way.  We then wandered through a beautiful neighborhood of classic old summer homes near the water, ultimately ending up at a nice inn overlooking Walker Point where the Bush family summers. 

We stopped on our way back at the Colony Inn, a big old hotel with a pool overlooking the water and had lunch on their terrace.  There was a wedding taking place on the lawn while we were eating lunch.  The bride was pretty but a little on the stocky side.  Ann noticed that the bride's mother, father, uncles and aunts were enormous and, even if you graded them on a curve for their size, were just downright unsightly.  The grandfather seemed to be clutching a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey.  Part of me wanted to yell over the railing to the groom to run while there was still time, but it seemed inappropriate somehow, what with the bride coming down the aisle and all.  I decided I was not my brother's keeper and enjoyed my lunch.

Dude! Run!

After lunch we wandered into the commercial part of town and looked at a couple of galleries and tourist shops.  I bought Ann a nice sterling silver necklace which made her happy (temporarily).  After shopping we went back to the hotel, took a short nap, then had a drink on the lawn outside our room facing the harbor.

Right in front of us there was a big, massively overpowered outboard with two inflatable motorboats that looked like they belonged in a James Bond movie.  I went over for closer inspection and saw that the inflatables had Secret Service markings on them.  The dock boy then confirmed that the big outboard belonged to President Bush senior.  This boat had three three hundred horsepower Mercurys on it.  With nine hundred horsepower I figured this boat could easily go 80 miles per hour.  I doubt seriously whether the Secret Service boats could keep up if George wanted to lose them, especially if there was any chop on the water—the inflatables would go airborne.

George HW Bush's 900 HP Boat and Secret Service Boats

After cocktails we went to the Striper restaurant up the road and had a delicious meal of fried oysters on the half shell, fresh fish and a bottle of sauvignon blanc.  This was our last night before heading home to face the music at the office.  Went to bed happy.

The next morning it was raining.  We got a small breakfast at the hotel and got on the road to Logan.  Had an uneventful trip home followed by a joyous reunion with Daisy.

Thus ended another eventful vacation.

Day Eight

Day 8

No annoying CapitalWorks call on day 8.  Breakfast was scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and good homemade bread, the latter two items giving us our weekly requirement of carbs all in one meal.  Our hike was to be the Third Mountain Trail to West Chairback Pond.  One of our fellow guests had returned from this hike a couple of days previously with a bleeding head, having lost his balance on a steep part of the trail and doing a header on a rock. 

The trails in the east are different from the trails we hike out west in the Rockies.  In the west the trails are graded for horses and mules, while in the east they just go wherever they are going and simply follow the topography, even if it is straight up or straight down.  This makes for some exciting ascents and descents.  Hiking poles are a big advantage.

We had heard there were trout in West Chairback Pond so we brought our fishing gear and a couple of canoe paddles (the pond had canoes but no paddles--presumably on the theory that a thief might pay 20 bucks to get onto the AMC grounds, then hike 8 miles into the woods, steal a canoe paddle, then hike back out with his loot).

We had a beautiful hike with only a couple of really steep stretches.  We met a couple of friendly through-hikers at the summit.  They had started at roughly the same time in Georgia this spring and would finish the hike in a few days at Mount Katahdin.   They were both reluctant to see it end.  One would be going to graduate school and the other would be returning to work in September.

Ann

We ultimately got to West Chairback pond and had lunch.  Fred and I then hopped into a canoe and went out to catch a fish.  Unfortunately it was the middle of the day which is generally a challenging time to catch fish.  The lake was shallow, we could see no fish and there was nothing rising.  We paddled out to the middle of the lake and Fred cast a wooly bugger and trolled it behind the canoe.  Something grabbed the fly and when he reeled in, there was nothing there--the fly was gone.

Fred claimed that he had felt a strike that must have been a large fish and that it just ripped the fly off his line.  It is much more likely that he tied a bad knot and snagged a weed while we were trolling and lost his fly that way.  He preferred his theory about a huge fish with ninja power that could rip flies off the leader at will.  It was one of those pointless arguments like whether President Obama was born in the United States.  (Everybody knows he was born in Afghanistan but some people just won't admit it.)

Fishing on West Chairback Pond

We got totally skunked at fishing and returned to our spouses as losers.  We had failed at providing for the tribe--a big blow to our self esteem and sense of manhood.  We got over it by eating a chocolate chip cookie.  We then threw on our day packs and hiked back to the Lodge.

After a nap and dinner Fred and I decided to have another go at fishing so we drove a couple of miles up to Little Lyford pond and borrowed one of their canoes.  We had better luck there.  I caught one fish right away on a nymph and then caught one on a grasshopper pattern.  The fishing went cold for a while but then we both put on a Parachute Adams and each caught several fish.  We determined before we left that they were taking an emerging caddis but the mosquitos were getting to us and it was getting dark so we went home to bed rather than put on new flies.  All told we probably caught 10 nice brook trout.  Manhood restored.

Ann and I were going to be leaving the next day.  I think that, notwithstanding her trepidation before the trip, Ann actually had a good time.  Our plan was to spend the night at a nice hotel in Kennebunkport on the way home and I knew she was looking forward to fluffier pillows, better sheets, less hillbillies and better food. 

Day Seven

Day 7

Woke up, had another conference call with the office, then bellied up for a breakfast of french toast, bacon and cinnamon rolls.  The quantity of carbohydrates that the lodge served was somewhat mind boggling.  One generally would not be looking for the platter of cinnamon rolls after polishing off a pile of french toast and maple syrup.  The hiking certainly neutralized some of this but Ann, who watches her diet pretty closely, generally seemed to be in a mild state of distress (or perhaps insulin shock) at the AMC table. 

Fred

We hiked the Henderson Brook Trail up to East Chairback Pond that day.  The final mile and a half up to the lake was straight up--I would estimate about 800 feet of elevation.  When we arrived at the lake there was a nice open campsite where we had lunch.  Fred decided to go in for a swim but the rest of us declined to join him. 

Look at where my muscles used to be!

We met a through-hiker who had just started at Mount Katahdin and was walking south.  He had been in the woods for about a week.  The northern part of the trail is difficult terrain with a lot of elevation, winding through the mountains of northern Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  This guy was overweight and out of shape and his backpack appeared to be overfull and somewhat disorganized.  I suspected he was not going to make it, but respected him for trying.  We gave him and apple and a cookie which he deeply appreciated.  Fred then found another apple and tried to make him beg for it, which was mean.  Ann and Cindy scolded Fred and he gave up the apple with no more shenanigans.

Before the mandatory afternoon nap, I challenged Fred and Cindy to a Boggle smackdown at 5pm in the main lodge.  Boggle is a word game where you shake up a bunch of dice with letters on them and pour them onto a tray and see how many words you can make from adjacent letters.  Cindy is pretty good at word games.  She considers the Sunday New York Times crossword a trivial amusement to be completed before her morning coffee.  We knew we were going down but put up a brave front.  Unfortunately I did not wake up from my nap in time to make it to our Boggle appointment--possibly a subconscious protective mechanism at work. 

Fred and Cindy's cocktail hour consists of a shared beer.  Granted, it is generally a high-test IPA, but even so this is a pretty disciplined drinking regimen.  Ann and I also share beer.  I drink my beer then I drink her beer.  She drinks sauvignon blanc. 

That night they served us fish and chips--excellent fish and outstanding home-made french fries.  However, the ladies again found fault--the fish was fried and french fries are apparently not a legitimate vegetable.

After dinner we got the Boggle game out.  Cindy proceeded to (figuratively speaking) pants us and then give us a wedgie.  Generally I would come up with 15 or so words in a turn and she would come up with 30.  My words were generally three letter words like "dog" while here were often multisyllabic words like "I'mahellofalotsmarterthanyou".  Whatever.  Ann came up with some interesting words that were disqualified such as "teef" (apparently an inner city derivation of the common word for molars, incisors, etc.) and Igor, the popular Frankenstein sidekick (disqualified because it was a proper name and also stupid).  We challenged Cindy to a game of either urban parks development or private equity dealmaking--her choice.  She declined, proving that she was afraid of us.

Day Six

Day Six

I got up early, read my book for a while, then got tired and went back to bed.  Woke up just in time for breakfast at the lodge at 8am.  Breakfast was some sort of frittata, potatoes, bacon and blueberry muffins.  I had a conference call at 8:30 with my partners on a funding issue for one of our investments.  There was a very weak cell phone signal from a signal amplifier in the basement of the lodge.  To make the call I had to go outside and stand next to one of the basement windows.

As I tried to figure out whether I could get a cell phone signal for my business call, I realized that I have been unreachable for a good part of this month, which has been both a blessing and a curse.  Earlier this month I spent a week backpacking on the John Muir Trail in California.  The John Muir Trail runs down the spine of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from Yosemite to Mount Whitney and, after you leave Yosemite, there is virtually no cell phone coverage for the entire route.  After hiking the John Muir Trail I was back in the office for a week and then left for Maine where, of course, I had no cell phone coverage for the first three days of this vacation on Matinicus.

While it is damned inconvenient to be incommunicado, it is also a great luxury.  When you really cannot be available to any jackass who has your cell phone number (note: this is NOT a reference to my beloved partners and staff at CapitalWorks) you are free.  There is nothing you can do to solve problems, stay in the loop, delegate, update, whatever.  Therefore you just let it go.  My current situation at Gorman Chairback was a little different.  If I stood on one leg facing north next to the basement window of the main lodge I could get a weak signal.  This allowed me to read daily emails and make outbound calls if I scheduled the time to do so.  It was a 'tweener--I wasn't out of touch but communication was unreliable and somewhat complicated.

After my conference call we got organized, put on sunscreen, loaded up our daypacks and set out for the Gulf Hagas Rim Trail that, as you might suspect, ran along the Gulf Hagas River.  We had left a car at the end of the trail to avoid a boring walk back on the main logging road back to camp.  The trail was beautiful and was often several hundred feet above the river, providing breathtaking views which, in Ann's case, was not always a good thing.  She is a bit acrophobic and was clearly not interested in leaning over the edges of the cliffs. 

The Gulf Hagas Trail began on the Appalachian Trail for the first mile then cut left along the river.  We were approximately 80 miles from the end of the Appalachian Trail at Mount Katahdin.  We met a number of through-hikers (people walking the entire trail from Georgia to Maine). 

Gulf Hagas Trail

The geology was mostly shale, which had been turned almost perfectly vertical in some ancient cataclysmic geological event.  Fred explained an interesting geological phenomenon that had always puzzled me.  The river cut through hundreds of feet of shale that should have stopped the flow of water and redirected it in another direction.  How had the river ever established such an implausible channel, cutting through tons of rock?  The answer, Fred told us, was that the river was always more or less in its established channel and the earth had pushed up slowly around it over millions of years allowing it to eat away the rising rock slowly while the surrounding rock continued to rise.

Ann

In total we probably hiked 7 miles, taking our time, stopping at overlooks and having lunch.  The hike took us a total of about 6 hours.  We got back to camp around 4pm.  We established our afternoon routine for the remainder of the trip that day--showers, naps, lukewarm cocktails on the porch (we did not have a refrigerator in the cabin), family style dinner at 6pm.  The chef was off that day and the staff decided to make us steak fajitas with homemade tortillas.  I thought the dinner was terrific but the ladies, who tend toward a non-traditional form of vegetarianism (bacon and fish are generally considered vegetables, french fries are not) did not approve.  The staff made up for it with one of the best pies I have ever had--a multi-berry pie with delicious, thin crispy crust.  It was made by the sole female staff member.  We made a point of saving room for anything this woman baked for the rest of our visit--she was in a completely different class from the other meatheads in the kitchen.

We hung out a little bit in the lodge and chatted with the metrosexual, gregarious but mildly annoying dentist from Cambridge.  Cindy pointed out that dentists generally have poor conversational skills since the jabber away while you are incapacitated with novocaine and cotton balls in your mouth.  They misinterpret "Shut up!" for "Please tell me more!". 

Got to bed early and slept like a log.

Introduction to the AMC Lodge

Intro to AMC Lodge

Cabins at Gorman Chairback Lodge

AMC’s Gorman Chairback lodge was located near Mount Katahdin in northern Maine.  Gorman Chairback was so named, I was told, because it had been the Gorman family's summer camp and it was located near Chairback Mountain. 

AMC runs wilderness lodges throughout New England, mostly in the White Mountains of New Hampshire along the Appalachian Trail.  In the White Mountains you can hike from AMC hut to AMC hut.  These lodges are in wilderness areas, so they are very rustic and offer minimalist lodging: cots, common bathroom facilities, group dining rooms.  In the White Mountain lodges, all of the food is packed in daily by the staff on foot.  This can be a 12 mile round trip hike, with an 80 pound pack for the “business” half of the hike.

AMC Locations

I have stayed in other AMC lodges in the past and had a pretty good idea of how they operated.  Gorman Chairback was different in that we could drive to the lodge and would have our own cabin while we were there.  To me, the overall feel of the compound was that off a summer canoe camp. 

Our cabin actually had sheets, towels, electricity and running water.  We found out later that ours was the only cabin with these amenities.  We were undoubtedly viewed with distain by our fellow campers for our high maintenance lifestyle.

During our visit I developed a demographic profile of the typical AMC member.  In my estimation, they tended to be disproportionately:

-Democrats

-Easterners/New Englanders

-Academics

-Public service types

-Smart

-Civically involved

In other words, no fun.  (To all the civically involved, smart Democrats reading this: just kidding.  Republicans: not!)

Ann felt that Gorman Chairback was basically an LL Bean catalogue in the flesh.  I thought this showed her appreciation for the lodge until I realized she has never ordered anything from LL Bean in her life.

Day Five

Day Five

It had rained heavily overnight and we woke up to fog.  Our plan was to take Penobscot Air back to Rockland but it looked marginal.  We called George and arranged to charter his boat to take us out a 10:30 if Penobscot could not fly that morning.  At 9:30 Penobscot confirmed that they were socked in in Rockland so we cancelled the flight and told George we would meet him at the harbor at 10:30.

Matinicus Airstrip

We had a nice cruise in with George to Rockland.  The weather was a little rough but the Robin handled it with no problem.  When we got into town, we loaded up the car and started heading north.  Before we had gotten more than a mile out of town we saw a legit-looking clam shack on the side of the road and pulled over.  Got a lobster roll and a pint of fried clams.  The shack was run by three guys who were obviously not the sharpest knives in the drawer--our order threw them into a tizzy of activity--writing down the order, checking to see what the prices were, doing third grade math to see what we owed them, then actually making the meal.  Notwithstanding their mental limitations, they made very good lobster rolls and clams. 

Stopped at really nice outdoors store to get Ann some gear for the woods.  Hat, fleece, overshirt, etc.  Drove up to AMC lodge mostly on conference calls catching up on things that had been happening in my absence at the office.

We got to AMC lodge at about 430pm.  We got settled and took a short nap.  According to the staff member we spoke to, Fred and Cindy had checked in the day before and I couldn't understand why he hadn't shown up at our cabin yet--it was unlike Fred to let much time elapse before coming over to harass us. 

AMC Lodge Living Room

I double checked with a staff member to make sure Fred was there.  He asked me if my brother was from Cambridge and I said yes.  He assured me Fred had checked in and then confused me by saying "he's the one with the painted toenails, right?"  This did not sound like my brother so I asked to see their sign in sheet--sure enough, Fred had signed in--but under his wife Cindy's name, Taft.  While it was probably logical to use Taft for one reservation and Mueller for the other (ours) I was beginning to wonder about my brother--he's got painted toenails and has taken his wife's name?

It turned out that there was another guy from Cambridge (a dentist) who was there with his wife.  This fellow had adopted a "metrosexual" style that included the aforementioned painted toenails, short shorts and a midriff-exposing tight shirt.  I try to be open minded, but there was something incongruous about this guy's wardrobe at a Maine camp on the Appalachian Trail.  My concerns about brother Fred were allayed.

Fred finally showed up a little before 6pm, the designated dinner time.  Cindy followed shortly on his heels.  As it turned out, they were in the cabin next door to us.  We had a quick beer then went into the main lodge for dinner.  Fred and Cindy had already been there for a day so they were like the cool kids at camp who already knew the ropes.  We were the newbies.

Dinner was good no-nonsense food—chicken, salad, mashed potatoes, cake.  We got a glass of wine at dinner.

The lodge had a campfire that night.  We opted to stay in our cabin and read books, but could hear an amateur folk singer strumming a guitar down by the fireside.  She played all of the required folk standards: Leaving on a Jet Plane; Puff the Magic Dragon (twice); If I had a Hammer; This land is your land, etc.  After the second rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon, I was reminded of the scene in Animal House when John Belushi, at the toga party, hears a sensitive guy singing folk songs in the stairwell with doe-eyed co-eds looking up at him reverently.  Belushi grabs the guitar, smashes it on the stairs, and leaves with a demonic look on his face.

Belushi hears something he doesn't like

Day Four

Day Four

The phone rang at 3:30am.  I knew instantly that it was the call from Biscuit.  I was groggy from Sauvignon Blanc and lack of sleep but I dragged myself out of bed.  This was a test of manhood and I was not going to live with the shame of having slept through an opportunity to get on a lobster boat.  In particular I felt I would not be able to face our friend Gregg Peckham, who loves the "Deadliest Catch" show and would never forgive me if I stayed home.

I got dressed in a bunch of old clothes that Alan had salvaged from his attic--Alan and I are roughly the same size--6'4" or so.  I wore some old khakis, two layered polo shirts, a fisherman's sweater and a windbreaker.  Alan also provided me with some cut off wellingtons that he had salvaged from the island recycling center (he started the recycling center on the island and still volunteers there--prior to this anything that would sink was simply dumped in the ocean). 

Alan selflessly got up with me, made coffee and offered to drive me to the harbor to meet Biscuit and his crew.   We arrived at the harbor a little before four.  A couple of minutes later, a young bearded guy who was built like an NFL tight end showed up.  He introduced himself as Rocky, one of Biscuit's stern men.  He asked if I was the guy that was going out with them.  When I confirmed that I was he gave me the same laugh everyone else had given me the prior evening.

Rocky and I chatted for a few minutes before the others showed up.  I asked him what he did before becoming a lobster fisherman.  He told me he had taught mixed martial arts and was a professional cage fighter.  Yes, you heard me--I was fishing with a frigging professional cage fighter.  You can't make this stuff up.  On Matinicus, if they're not pirates, they're cage fighters.  For a professional cage fighter he seemed like a great guy (for example, he didn't slam my head against the lamppost and bite my ear off).

Dawn off Matinicus

Biscuit and his son Dillon showed up a few minutes later.  Biscuit is a very large man (maybe pushing 300 pounds) and cannot safely make it down the ladder from the pier into the dinghy.  The pier is built at a height to accommodate the twice-a-month ferry and therefore requires a 10 foot climb down a wet, barnacle-encrusted ladder to get into the boat.  Dillon therefore paddled the dinghy to the beach, picked up Biscuit and then we all rowed to his lobster boat, the Dillon James (named, of course, for Dillon).  (By the way, Biscuit may be overweight but he is not by any means out of shape--I watched him pick up the front of an ATV that probably weighed 750 pounds and move it three feet like it was a tricycle.)

We tied up the dinghy to the mooring, cast off and headed out of the harbor on the Dillon James.  The seas were a little rough and it was clear we were going to be rolling and bobbing quite a bit.  I am not particularly susceptible to sea sickness, but when I have been so afflicted it was on a deep sea fishing boat under exactly these conditions--big swells, boat often stationary or drifting, and the delightful aroma of a bait tank nearby.  I knew that having the rookie (me) retching over the gunwales would make everyone's day on the Dillon James (not to mention the snickering townspeople on Matinicus) and just crossed my fingers that my stomach would not betray me.

Biscuit at the Tiller

The Dillon James was approximately 40 feet long by my estimation.  It was powered by a big diesel engine--probably over 300 horsepower.  The aft fishing deck was approximately 8 by 12 and had enough room for the bait tank (filled with rancid, highly aromatic herring and various undesirable pieces of what looked to be codfish--fins, tails, etc.).  The wheel was on the starboard side and there was a power winch in reach of the helmsman.  The lobster traps were 2 by 4 by 2 wire mesh rectangles--modern versions of the charming old wooden traps that you see on the walls of cheesy seafood restaurants everywhere.

Biscuit sets his traps in a line.  I believe there are generally 5 traps on each buoy and there are several buoys in a row in a given area.  A lobsterman generally has a total of 400 to 800 traps and checks each trap every third day or so.  Sometimes he can't check his traps for several days because of weather and this leads to some 15 hour days on the water catching up.  I suspect that Biscuit has more than 800 traps.

The Maine coast is like a minefield for lobsters.  There are lobster traps everywhere.  I would guess that every lobster that ends up on your table has been caught at least 10 times before he ends up at the market.  The size of a "keeper" lobster is strictly regulated and fishermen keep a caliper gauge on board their boats to measure whether lobsters are legal.  It seemed to me that about 2/3 of the lobsters we caught were thrown back--either because they were too small, too big or were breeding females full of eggs.

Lobsters, having been caught in traps multiple times, apparently don't learn.  They have small brains that are wired only to find their next meal.  The lobstermen provide meals to them in the form of thousands of tons of herring bait every day.  The lobsters and the lobstermen have a symbiotic relationship until the lobster gets big enough, at which point it becomes a strictly one-way relationship in favor of the fisherman--a change of events that must come as a big shock to the lobsters.

Rocky and Dillon moved with an easy grace--hooking the buoy, setting the line in the winch, pulling up the trap, removing the lobsters, throwing the keepers into a bin and pitching the babies and the breeders back into the sea.  My job was to re-stuff the bait sacks with herring and other unmentionable stuff from the bait tank and band the claws of the lobsters we were keeping.

Rocky and Dillon at Work

The lobsters appeared to be seriously pissed off when pulled out of the trap.  They assumed a claws-ready defensive position and backed into a corner.  The challenge was to get ahold of the lobster before the lobster got ahold of your fingers.  You then had to get the rubber bands around their claws.  The rubber band goes on a spreader that stretches it to fit over the claws.  You then slide the stretched band over the claw and twist the spreader off to close the claw.

The only dangerous parts of the job were running the winch and throwing the traps back in.  The winch pulled the traps up and could probably take off a finger or two if you wrapped the line on the wrong way.  Throwing the traps back in was potentially more dangerous.  After the lobsters have been removed and the traps re-baited, Biscuit would accelerate the boat and the string of traps would be thrown overboard in sequence at his order.  The traps were generally in about 100 feet of water and if the line wrapped around your ankle on the way out of the boat, you would probably be dragged down 50 feet in frigid Maine water before you could disentangle yourself.  I'm not sure if Biscuit would have stopped for us in any case.

I had worked on the ore boats on the great lakes after high school for a summer and I was very familiar with the danger of loose lines, winches and going overboard.  I gave the traps and lines a wide berth and focused on stuffing bait sacks.

Biscuit dropped me off in Matinicus harbor at about 10:30 am.  We had fished for over 6 hours--about half their fishing day.  Biscuit gave me 7 lobsters as payment and asked me to drop off four additional lobsters for Eva and Paul.  I walked the half mile back to the cottage (Eva and Paul lived at the end of Alan and Peggy's drive) and delivered my bounty.

I was ready to go back to bed when I got home but Ann and Peggy insisted that I go for a bike ride around the island.  We rode past the one room school house (Peggy had done the fundraising and volunteer organizing for the school's nice playground), up to the church (which hosted visiting pastors of all religions), rode to the airport and watched their friend Morrie's wife take off on the grass air strip, visited Morrie's house (which had a door from Bob Dylan's house in Greenwich Village that Morrie had salvaged), walked through Morrie's beautiful gardens, rode to the West side of the island and visited another friend on a beautiful private cove, rode back and stopped at Eva's for some bread, then ran into two other neighbors before we could get home.  When we finally got back I was exhausted and climbed straight upstairs for a much needed nap.

That night we had Alan and Peggy’s friends Charlie and Margaret over for Biscuit's lobsters.  Charlie was a former school administrator from Connecticut and a charming guy.  Margret had a big personality and was tons of fun.  We ate lobsters, drank wine and generally made a big mess. 

More Lobsters

We were due to leave the following morning for the AMC lodge in northern Maine where we would meet my brother Fred and his wife Cindy.  We were scheduled to take Penobscot Air from the grass landing strip at the end of the island weather permitting.  Penobscot flies a single engine Cessna that flies in the mail.  This logistical plan was all the more exciting since this service had two plane crashes last summer--one in high winds that killed the pilot and another that crashed with Alan and Peggy's friend Eva on board (in that latter case all four survived the crash).  The weather looked marginal so we lined up George and the Robin as a backup in case they couldn't fly.

Airplane Recovery--Eva's Crash