Jeff Holden grew up in Portland when groundfish were abundant and the fishing industry thrived. At age 14, he was working from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Brown’s Wharf in Portland packing whiting. He laughs to remember how once, walking home after work, he caught a ride with a fellow who put up with
Harbormasters: Heavy on Tact, No Suits or Ties Required
The job of harbormaster has been transformed in many towns from very part-time to very full-time. “I do a little bit of everything,” said Kathy Messier, harbormaster in Belfast. In 11 years on the job, things have gotten busier and busier. “I do slip rentals, mooring rentals, emergency work, mooring permits, cruise ships,” she said.
Pope Sails, Rockland: It Takes Teamwork (and Music) to Stitch a Good Sail
Custom sailmaking is an old but growing business in midcoast Maine, and it’s also something of an art. Sails must be functional yet beautiful; lightweight, tough and versatile. Sailmakers – like the crew of a sailboat – must use teamwork to get the job done. It’s no coincidence that Doug Pope was a sailor first,
Company Imprives its Crank-up Bait-lobster Box
John Kaznecki, owner of Seacoast Machine and Fabrication, has “tuned up” his already popular crank-up bait/lobster box. With the improvement of the crank up ratchet system and the addition of the new box bottom that allows for a slight increase in volume, the box now appears more as if it was designed for a yacht
Journal of an Island Kitchen: Eggs-actly
According to recent calculations a third of a million eggs will be laid on Islesboro in the next ten years, and that will be just by hens as long as our chicken population does not change very much. Islesboro has around 603 souls, according to the 2000 census, and at this time of year, March,
A Feast of Lobster Books
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean By Trevor Corson Harper Collins, 2004 The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier By Colin Woodard Viking Books, 2004 Not one but two very good new books on Maine lobsters. It’s like being
Mallets Aforethought
Bantam Books 294 pp, $21.95 ($32.95 Canadian) Eastport’s most famous sleuth, Jacobia Tiptree, is once again on the trail of a cold-blooded murderer in Mallets Aforethought, the seventh mystery by Sarah Graves – who just keeps getting better and better. This time, tragedy strikes close to home as the husband of Tiptree’s best friend and
Owls Head
New York: Quantuck Lane Press, 2003. Owls Head is not just a lighthouse or rocky point in midcoast Maine. In Rosamond Purcell’s book, we experience it as a locus of transformation. Owls Head documents this place, the salvage yard of William Buckminster. Purcell, touring the area in 1981 while teaching a photography class in Rockport,
More Memories From Harbor View Pathway
Self-published, 2003 “Shipboard Romances,” “The Art of Opening Up,” “The Monkey,” “Island Rules and Regulations,” “It Takes an Island – to give a wedding.” The names of the essays tell you what kind of book you’re reading. More Memories could only have been written by someone who knows “her” island – in this case Matinicus
Cruising at Last: Sailing the East Coast
Lyons Press, 2003 Cruising at Last is an assemblage of shorter pieces written by Elliott Merrick, an accomplished writer and teacher who spent a number of his later years ranging the East Coast in small boats before he died in 1997 at the age of 91. After Merrick’s death, at the request of his daughter,