Lobsters and Lighthouses

The two "L's" that seem to sum up the coastal part of this beautiful state are lobsters and lighthouses. So far we have eaten some lobster but have spent much more time dodging lobster traps and learning about the lobster industry along our journey.  Lobster fishing accounts for about 75% of all the Maine fishing industry and about 80% of all lobster served up in restaurants in the US come from Maine.  So that explains why we have to be vigilant as we cruise and both be looking out for the buoys marking the pots.  The one good thing is they tend to be well kept and fairly big and colorful so they are not terribly hard to spot.  But we still have had a few near misses so far.

We left our rolly mooring in Portland Harbor on Al's birthday 7/21 to head to Boothbay Harbor for the weekend.  On the way we passed several lighthouses and this one was close enough for a decent picture.  It is marking Coollector's Ledge one of the thousands of rock ledges waiting to snag a boat! 

This pretty lighthouse is the Burnt Island Light in Boothbay Harbor.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset in Boothbay Harbor after a great birthday dinner at Ports of Italy, an authentic Italian restaurant serving me the delicious veal special and Al the "fruits of the sea" over black ink spaghetti followed by cheesecake.        

Saturday afternoon we took the dingy over to visit the Maine State Aquarium which is primarily a research facility with a tiny public aquarium that showed us the stages of lobster development with live baby lobsters and also a 24lb big guy.  Didn't know that they throw back all lobsters that are not in the range of 31/4" and 5" long (body length) and that it takes up to 7 years for a lobster to grow into "legal catching" size.  The bigger lobsters produce tons more eggs so by throwing back bigger ones, the fishermen help preserve their livelihood.   BTW the big lobster we saw was 24 lbs and was being kept for research purposes.  The picture above was snapped with InSpeyered 2 in the far background.  This is the first picture of Al as a senior citizen! As a continuation of the birthday weekend, Saturday night we enjoyed the first fresh scallops from the Maine Gulf, yumm!   

On Sunday we headed out for a short 24 mile cruise to Port Clyde, home to Marshall Point Lighthouse which was featured in the movie, "Forest Gump".

There is a quaint museum in the light keepers house.

 This is the view of the lighthouse from our boat. 

We got our exercise walking to the lighthouse along a hilly road and were rewarded with a beautiful view of the waters flowing into Penobscot Bay, our next destination.  

Al liked this angle looking at an artist painting the lighthouse on the rocky beach. 

Port Clyde Harbor was very quiet and protected.  

It was a beautiful, cool night in the harbor.  

On Monday 7//24 we cruised another 25 miles to Rockland to tie up for two nights at Journey's End Marina to see the town, do some land chores like laundry and check out another lighthouse.  Rockland is a busy harbor and has more commercial traffic. 

But it is also another pretty Maine harbor with pleasure boats and fishing boats mixed together.

This was taken at low tide in an area that has 12 foot tidal changes so walking up and down the ramp was a challenge. 

This is a far away shot of the Breakwater lighthouse that is .8 miles out on the wall protecting Rockland harbor.  I hiked more than 2 miles to get to the wall and walked partway out on the wall and then got "the willies" in my stomach so turned around for tera firma and didn't make it out to the light.  Rockland is a short way up the Penobscot Bay which will take us to the Penobscot River and a visit with Al's sister and brother in law and an old friend of ours from Long Island days.  Too many pictures in this post so will continue on in the next posting.