The volunteer-run Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad can be an adventurous ride. Here are its tracks in Thorndyke, Maine, as seen from a passenger car door.
Tag: Travel
On Eggemoggin Reach
just passed an old sardine carrier
turned private yacht
Local traffic
sardines as a reminder of where I’ve settled
when the Louis R. French was based out of Lubec
and owned by American Can in Eastport
she had an engine and no masts
faring something like this
This may seem petty but …
Do we really have to wait another year for the new Interstate 395 leg from Maine Route 9 to I-95 itself to open?
It’s only a few miles and minutes but eliminates a lot of aggravation in getting from here at the eastern edge of the country to most of the rest of the USA. That half-hour of narrow roadway competing with Canadian tractor-trailers on icy pavement plus small-town radar speed traps is an aggravating bottleneck, believe me, even before you factor in all of the Acadia National Park seasonal crush. The new route will ultimately get us around Bangor/Brewer more swiftly and maybe save us ten minutes or so at most, but on a five-hour drive that can be huge.
As it is falls back into a Trump-era vision of what’s supposed to be good at least as the fireworks and firearms retailers along the way declare.
What’s the biggest traffic hang-up you hate?
Worshiping in another Quaker Meeting
Vassalboro,
how many times I’ve driven an hour to worship,
even my own home Meeting
sunflowers outside the window
a gray morning
ten of us, now eleven
so many of the surnames from Dover
arrived here and abouts
edgewalkers
part of a message
the Zoom view of the Meeting room
shows only me
surrounded by white walls
“green walling,” a term I just learned
no, a green washing
by conniving corporations
a carpenter tells me of working on the renovations
of the schooner American Eagle
all new to me
but not for long
In more than one swirl
I’m turned about so much
we don’t connect to the guidebook
in my hand
across from Brooklin
on Blue Hill peninsula
wooden boat school renown
and the magazine
I’m so turned around
the overnight air was humid
we thought the early morning sun
was the moon
we could look at straight
like the nearly full moon
Castine green dream
With the ocean in view, this lawn appears impeccable.
Silver sea
As you see, our waters aren’t always deep blue.
Nature notes on Penobscot Bay
we’ve seen so many seals
harbor seals, more than gray
dozens of sunning seals
today I’m beginning to spot them unprompted
against the rocks
a lazy pace
or is that leisurely
nearly full moon
through a scrim
a bald eagle in flight
and a seal swimming
the next morning
a porpoise
after passing seals
weigh, haul away
where did those porpoises go?
an osprey flew over the water
before breakfast
this could be addictive
The Wolves
This cluster of small islands in Fundy Bay at the tip of Campobello includes a light house that’s become invisible in this photo.
Take up a new activity means learning words that go with it
My week on a schooner enlarged my vocabulary.
For instance.
- A quarterboard proclaims the name of the ship at the bow.
- Quarterdeck, the little raised house behind the main mast, where the wheel is. The forecastle is the one at the other end, up by the bow.
- Dropping the hook, meaning anchor.
- Gaff, the more or less horizontal spar at the top of the mainsail and foresail. It makes those sheets irregular quadrilaterals in shape rather than triangular.
- Beam, the width. Crown, the roll of the deck for water to roll off. Sheer is the cut of the profile, usually voiced with aesthetic appreciation or disproval.
- Hatch, with the ladders down into the hold.
- Stern, the back, where we steer.
- Transom, the flat back of the boat , or, as you know now, at the stern.
- Yawl. It can be a kind of auxiliary sail, but in a schooner’s case, usually refers to the yawl boat riding at the stern when it’s not off somewhere on its own.
- Windward, meaning the direction the wind’s coming from, and leeward, the direction the wind’s headed. In a heavy wind, the windward side of the ship’s higher, while the leeward one dips toward the water. (When it’s really touching the water, the ship’s “running the rail,” meaning ripping along.)
I also like the term “running on one screw,” meaning propeller, except we didn’t have one.
We won’t even start talking tonnage, which seems to mean a lot for insiders.
