We had a great time in Southwest with Sue and Ian. I actually don't think my teeth lost their purple tint until well into the next day. Sunday with a sparkling weather forecasted for the week we pulled anchor and went back to McGatherty island. We had told Sue and Ian so much about it that they decided to join us. We arrived Sunday night, dropped anchor and had an early night.
Monday morning we all went to the beach where the kids played. Early in the morning another sailboat with kids pulled into the anchorage, Jennifer and Ben were GREAT. They had two girls aged eight and three so altogether we had six kids ranging in age from 10-nineteen months. Had someone without kids stumbled upon us they would have thought it was chaos but as those of you with kids know, you don't even blink an eye.
Ben and Jennifer are from NY and sail every summer in Maine for weeks on end. They ended up staying there the night and we had a big lobster bake. Sue and Ian flagged down a lobsterman and scored lobster. While at the beach everyone picked mussels to add to the evenings festivities. The gang converged on the beach around 6:00 and the activities began. It was great fun. Ian told us that bonfires etc. are not really part of the English culture so we showed him the ropes.
Today we have moved to Isle au Haut, which is truly the island that time forgot. It is serene and lush and wild. We saw two snakes which O assured us were gardener snakes. I don't think he knew for sure what they were but gardener snakes was the politically correct thing to say. In order to live on the island you have to prove that you have a way to support yourself, this helps keep summer residences to a minimum which preserves the beauty and tranquility. I am a political junky so it's is sometimes startling to me when I visit the secluded rustic islands how insular they are. The outside world seems so very far away, like another country almost. However, we did see a bumper sticker on one of the cars that O enjoyed. It read " If they call it tourist season then why can't we shoot them". So I guess it's not as isolated as I would like to think.
We are slowly making our way back to Camden where we will pick up Steve's parents, O's surrogate parents, Paula and Doog on Friday. We are very much looking forward to spending time with them. Next week Steve and Deb will be up at their camp in Tenants Harbor so we will anchor off and spend the week with them. We are, as always, looking forward to spending time with the Maxcy family as a GREAT time is always had by all.