Quahog Country
20 July 2012 | Zack & Karen & dogs Rosie, Sarge and Hailey at The Basin, Phippsburg, Maine
Vicki - 22 deg C Fine
Maine is not known for swimming, but we've now enjoyed two lovely swims in our anchorage at The Basin, the best known hurricane hole in Maine. The water temp was around 22 deg C, yet a seal popped his head up quite close to us. The Basin is the ultimate safe harbour surrounded by rocky points, spruce and pine trees and a few cabins sparsely hidden amongst the foliage. It looks similar to Macona Inlet in the Whitsundays in North Queensland, Australia except the entrance to The Basin has an opening of 150 feet which becomes 75 feet on rounding a bend where it opens up to a perfect little harbour. Both of these locations have been formed by glaciation.
In the 1940's, The Basin was ground zero for gathering quahogs along the New Meadows River and apparently still produces 52 bushels an acre. Quahogs are also known as clams and are gathered by commercial fishermen using skiffs and rakes with handles up to 50 feet long. It is extremely hard physical work. Quahogs are apparently the longest lived animal in the world. An ocean quahog found in Iceland was estimated to be between 405 and 410 years old, assessed by counting its shell rings as they grow one shell ring per year. Now there's a fact you can tell your friends at your next party.
We've received lots of attention in every anchorage we've stayed. All manner of vessels drop by to say hello, take photos, compliment the fine lines of our vessel, enquire about our home port and where we are headed and we now feel we are slowly getting to know quite a lot of people on the water. We were kindly invited for a day out with Zack Longley, Karen StClair and their friends Steve & Ellen Gilman, Caroline McGuirk, Robin & Don Johnson, Al & Sue Davis, Ted, Dan, Sinead and Eva Triandifilou on Zack's boat to view the Maine coastline and surrounding islands. We were welcomed with extreme kindness into their lives and homes, enjoyed lunch together and treated like family. If this is the way the people from Maine treat complete strangers, then we love this State. It's like no other. Hopefully we can reciprocate when they visit Australia.
The Marine Traffic website is not working in this area but we should hopefully come up on the site as we move further north-east.
We now have our replacement flopper stopper which was sent to us to Portland, Maine yesterday. We had another interesting "issue", but I'll tell you about that later. Rest assured, all is well on Vanish.