Saturday, August 1, 2009

Rockland - We Tour the Coast Guard Station


As part of Lobster Fest weekend at Rockland, the Coast Guard station offered tours of their buildings and boats. Since we had been docked so close to the station over the years, we were anxious to see the inside. The first stop was the headquarters by town which had a view of the surrounding area through remote cameras. We saw Fleetwing being scanned, "That's our boat!" There was a lot of elaborate knot work on paddles hanging on the walls, a traditional gift from new recruits.
The station has four main ships. The smallest one looks like an inflatable but really isn't. The orange sides used to be inflated but due to difficulty of repairs, they've changed over to foam filled construction. The next one has a photo of Matthew at the wheel and a photo of Matthew with his father and the tour host in front of the boat. We've always thought it looked like something our of Mad Max. It's constructed out of welded aluminum and is self righting if capsized, an important safety feature. It doesn't look pretty but it's very functional. It would look beautiful if you were in trouble and it came to your rescue!

We had planned to reprovision that morning but Rockland decided to hold a parade that morning, blocking off all of main street and our access to the supermarket! Finally, the last straggler passed by around noon and went to a Hannafords nearby. In Maine they sell wine in supermarkets so we reprovisioned all our needs in one stop. Getting everything on the boat was interesting since it was low tide (naturally!) which resulted in a very steep ramp. We got everything on board safely and said our goodbyes. We started cleaning house for our next visitors coming on Monday, the Mehaffeys. All day today was glorious, full sun and temps in the high 70's, hope Sunday is as good!

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