Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Exploring Boothbay

Ahoy mates its me Matt. Today I started the dink twice and docked it 4 times. We went on a trolley!! Then we went to the aquarium and I picked up a lobster about 5 times. Also I got to touch a shark and a skate. Then I got a squishy rubber ball to play with. After that we went to lunch at The Lobster Pound and we all had lobster rolls mmm. Then back on the boat I finished the Hobbit and I also watched Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest by myself. More tomorrow on Matt's Blog.

Boothbay has a free trolley that loops around town and one of the stop is at the small aquarium. It definitely has a kid focus with the emphasis on touching and handling the local sea life. They had two tanks, one with skates and stingrays and the other one with all manner of local sea life. There was scarcely room to squeeze in among the kids lining the tanks! It was kiddie heaven! Matthew took to the place like a bear to honey. He watched as the other kids picked up starfish, lobsters, sea cucumbers, crabs (supervised by an attendant) and then swung into action himself! He picked up one lobster to show it to another kid in a wheelchair (at the request of the kid's parents, see photo). Other sea creatures followed in short order.
There was a view of the entire harbor from the front lawn, a really great place to spend an afternoon!
After the visit to the aquarium, it was lobster roll time across the bay. Matthew enjoyed the lobster roll as much as we did, in fact he ask Nana if she was going to finish hers (fat chance...)! All this time Matthew piloted the dink and started the motor which required some very hard pulling, he never gave up! However, we never seems to take the most direct route, always the "scenic" route which provided more time for steering the dink, but we eventually made it to our destination.
Tomorrow we are aiming for Maple Juice Cove in preparation for a run to Rockland if the weather holds. It's raining now, the first day of any rain at all, and it's due to be nice tomorrow, sure hope so. In contrast to last year, we haven't used the heater at all this year. Last year we even used it in Long Island Sound, it was in the 70's today (and most days heading north). In Rockland I plan on picking up a new depth sounder to replace my malfunctioning unit. It's handy having one in Maine!

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