Monhegan Island

We visited Monhegan island, which is about 10 miles offshore guarding the entrance to Penobscot Bay. It’s an island of hardy lobster fishermen during the non-summer months. In tourist time it has artists, beer brewers and small inn keepers and restaurateurs. They don’t lobster here while the lobsters are growing into their new soft shells.

Georgia on a tight mooring in the Monhegan harbor (with Kokomo in the back right). This is the first time we’ve actually paid for a mooring in Maine – the cheap cruisers that we are. The bottom here is supposed to be full of 300 years of junk, making anchoring a dicey operation.

The island is covered with good hiking trails that take you along the cliffs.

One hike takes you to the wreck of the tug Sherman, rusting away.

Monhegan trail critter – aka muskrat- munching fresh dandelion greens.

Free range island chickens hanging by their ride.

The K through 8 Monhegan School, perched on a hillside overlooking the harbor.

I just never knew they had blonde mermaids. I should have paid better attention in school.

Lobster gear waiting to be setup and wrap around the keels and props of unsuspecting sailboats.

Lobster traps waiting for the Monhegan season. When you see how dense the lobster pots are put down in Maine and you know the history of the fishermen of the area wiping out the Cod fishery on the banks, it seems like the last lobster will be caught anytime now. But it turns out that they aren’t really catching free range lobsters from the wild. It is far closer to lobster farming. They put great lobster treats in the traps. The small lobsters willingly jump in and get a great meal. Then when the traps are lifted, the undersized lobsters are thrown back in. They get hungry, find another trap and chow down. Eventually, in a few years, they get big enough to harvest. Sounds a lot like farming to me.
 

After all this hard tourist work, we stopped at the only outer island brewery in Maine for a cold pint of their ‘Lobster Cove’ brew.

Downtown Monhegan as seen from the harbor, one of our Maine favorites.

Paul

Lobster Pot Floats

One of the nice things about cruising Maine is that they offer you a wide variety of colorful lobster pot floats to run over. There is one of any primary color combination you’d like. Getting the pots wrapped around your propeller shaft is a bad thing. You’d think that sailing, instead of motoring, while traveling through these mine fields would get you by unscathed.
But no, here I am diving to cut off the float remnants off the shaft. We picked up two different pots sailing through Penobscot Bay – so far. The stuff on the right is what got cut off. Water temp was 62*F.

The weather has been pretty good up here in Penobscot Bay. We have caught both days of their summer. Or, as they say up here, If summer comes on a Sunday, they have a picnic.

After clearing the prop, we went into the fishing village of Stonington. Had a good visit at the Stonington Granite Museum– surprisingly interesting. These islands are made out of the tops of old mountains, solid granite. Then, after educating ourselves, we found ‘the’ open restaurant where we could get a beer on the patio.

 

Fortunately we didn’t stay for another beer, because when we got back to the dinghy dock we found the granite seawall trying to shred and/or sink Kokomo’s dinghy.

Sign at a local restaurant…You figure it out???? It must be a Maine thing. After ten, smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

The next morning we picked up anchor at Stonington to head to Mount Desert Island (pronounced dessert- it’s a French thing), which is part of Acadia National Park. At first, we just went around in circles, as we’d snagged some steel cable that was laying in wait on the bottom. A 20 minute extraction and we were off.

There are ‘windjammers’ all over the bay. These guys sail the heck out of these boats – gotta keep the customers happy. They sail through passes that we are nervous to motor through.

We anchored on the west side of Mount Desert Island. We saw a lobster boat picking up pots near by and took the dinghy over for some negotiations. Five lobster for $20.

 

And this always makes Becky happy. John and Lisa were pretty pleased too.

I don’t think the osprey do lobster. But they’re always out here fishing.

Paul

Maine Food

Local lobstermen, on Decadence, picking up one of their 800 licensed lobster pots

A Maine lobsterman gets a license for 800 pots. With the license they get a plastic tag that must be attached to each pot they have down. There is reportedly 3,000,000 pots in the waters around Maine.

The pot floats are everywhere – in 20 feet of water and in 350 feet. Driving the boat is more like being on a slow slalom course. If you screw up, then you could get the pot rope wrapped on your propeller or rudder and have to dive on the boat to clear it.

Our special chef, Denny, proprietor and head chef of Denny’s Food for Men restaurant, flown in from Tacoma, preparing our first lobster feast

Becky and Chris, ready to eat. Note the blue and yellow lobster claw channel locks.

We don’t do food blogs often. But every once in awhile I have to do one for Steve and Lulu on Simepre Sabado.

Paul