The first part of our voyage today was a trip down memory lane. Twenty-six years ago our ship dredged the lower Kennebec River, and we came and went from the launch at Popham Beach. We took the ship up the Kennebec River, to the Bath Iron Works shipyard for a few days, before heading back down the east coast.
The things I remember most from that time was the shear beauty of Maine, the snow, the tides, and the current. The river seems much larger and gentler now, part of which is from the perspective of much smaller vessel, and part of which is because we didn't run the river at a maximum current. It wasn't snowing, and there were even people out on the beach.
We had missed the maximum ebb current, waiting for the railroad bridge tenders to come on duty to open the bridge at 0800, a little disappointment to me. Nevertheless, the trip downstream is gorgeous!
When we came out of the Kennebec, we journeyed a little back to the east, to visit Five Islands, a place we had deliberately skipped over the week-end, figuring it would be crowded. The local yacht club here has four moorings they offer transient boaters to stop and visit their community. All four moorings were empty when we arrived, and only one other mooring was taken later in the day. That is not to say that Five Islands wasn't bustling with activity.
Five Islands is a small lobstering community that seems to have found its niche appealing to tourism, most of which seems to come by automobile. There is a floating dock for recreational small boats, which was full of dinghies and small vessels most of the day. We tied to the floating dock, and went up the ramp into an area between three buildings. One of the buildings sells live or boiled lobster, with boiled corn or potatoes. One of the buildings sells fish sandwiches, lobster rolls, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. and t-shirts. The third building sells ice cream. There is picnic table seating around the 3 buildings, overlooking the commercial dock where there was a steady trickle of small boats coming in to offload their lobster.
It was interesting to me to see a bunch of happy kids that seemed to be everywhere working. It was teen-agers working in the 3 buildings, and I saw a half a dozen different boys and girls (looked around 12 years old) pulling lobster traps with small skiffs. There were adults around with some of the kids, but, the kids were learning and doing much of the work.
I'll always be grateful for the time I spent as a kid, working on boats.
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