S/V Daruma: Tenant's Harbor and Atwood's Quarry

(a little roman humor)

It was a foggy crossing from Vinalhaven. Exhausting run with the RADAR on and making the required sounds every 2 mins. We had reserved a mooring ball from Tenant's Harbor Boatyard and, thankfully, Stewart came out in a dink to guide us in. We never would have found it in the fog.

Thursday night we walked over to the East Wind Inn for dinner and drinks. We ate in the lower level tavern. Cozy.

While walking into town we passed this little fairy house by the roadside. I wish I had something for scale. The rungs on the ladder were 1".)

More fog on Friday. An Outward Bound boat of youngsters sailed by and asked, "Is this Tenant's Harbor?" They had no idea where they were and you could hardly tell whether you were in a harbor or still out in the ocean.

When I was ~15yo my family visited Atwood's Quarry on our way north to Nova Scotia. I had to come back.

The old derrick

It didn't seem like it changed much from the 70s. At that time we swam way out to the middle and our newfie, Shamu, would pull us back to the rim as we held her tail. The old derrick was still visible and a flock of seagulls were using the quarry as a protected bath. No swimming for Jo and me this time. We picked up a piece of granite to mail to mom and dad.

Still foggy so we had a l-o-n-g lunch at the Happy Clam. Eating, drinking, playing games, relaxing.

Back at the Boatyard Jo watched the lobster boats return, off-load their catch into crates (90# per crate), take on bait fish and fuel for tomorrow. The lobster pound has perforated pipes underwater and air is blown through to keep the water moving around the crates and keep the lobster fresh.

90 lbs of lobster per crate

Buying bait fish.

loading the bait

Check out the "genius" rig on the gas pump. Instead of climbing to the upper dock to turn the pump on/off you just pull a string. Blue=on. Red=off.

Gas pump with on/off strings to pull.

Check out the wood frame and the pulleys.

I was over on the other dock checking out M/V Dreadnought owned by the artist, Jamie Wyeth. Gorgeous downeast lobster hull built here at the boatyard. Decked out in black with classic bronze fittings. It was the perfect boat to cruise downeast but the black topsides would be waaaay to warm down south.