Our first winter in Maine was the coldest we have seen so far. The thermometer had scarcely crept above zero for a week, and on Saturday with a brisk Northwest breeze, needlelike crystals of ice formed on the surface of the bay. They drifted down with the wind and piled up on the shore making a mat of slushy ice 10 or 15 feet wide that undulated and tinkled to the waves below. That night the wind died. The crystals all over Linekin Bay froze together and in the morning there was no open water. It was frozen shore to shore.
On Monday the Friendship Sloop Society, then in its smaller, less organized and informal days, held a Winter Picnic on Washington’s Birthday on the shore of Friendship Harbor. Another cold day. About a dozen members gathered, buttoned and mittened and booted. Standing coldly, barelegged in the snow, stood a card table with appropriate refreshment. Bloody Mary seemed popular. Betty Roberts had a brisk fire going under a pot of shrimp stew.
The harbor was frozen right across. A few lobstermen walked out to clear mooring lines, pump or chop out ice around their boats. Muscongus Bay was frozen at least as far down as Jones Garden Island. There was, of course, a little discussion about the contrast with July, but it didn’t get far.
Betty’s fire proved very attractive and we clustered around in the fragrant smoke and the steam of our breaths. One skipper, holding a steamy mug of shrimp stew in two mittened hands observed, “That shrimp stew makes you kind of weavy, don’t it, Betty.”
The picnic didn’t last long. We found our way home in the late afternoon, the sun glittering on the now open water of Linekin Bay. It had warmed up some as the tide came. All along the shore chunks of ice had frozen to the rockweed on which they rested. The coming tide submerged them, but while we stood on the wharf watching, one melted loose and bounded to the surface with a “plop.” I couldn’t be sure which one it was, because I could see no clearly defined ripple or splash in the disturbed water, but I was determined to see the next one come. “Plop.” I snapped around to see which one it was, but all the chunks of ice bobbed innocently alike, laughing at me. There came another! Right where I was not looking. I stayed until nearly sunset and never caught one in the act. I finally left in the cold, clear sunset light with the night rising in the east.
About seven o’clock that same night we stopped for gasoline on Route 1. It was appreciably less cold, but still a winter night. In the days before Self Service, the attendant came out to fill our tank. He stood holding the frigid gasoline hose, barehanded, sleeves rolled up, and announced, “The winter’s broke. She’s broke now.” And he was right.