Difficult as it was, we pulled anchor and headed NE, or down Maine, past the Libby Islands which have the second most vocal fog horn on the Eastern Coast of the US, honking for close to 36 days and nights per year. Only the West Quoddy Head moaned longer (941 hours a year). We ran along the shoreline in deep water until we came to this very same lighthouse marking the entrance to Quoddy Narrows. It wasn’t foggy or we would have been blasted by the horn when rounding the head.
Our older sisters had recently joined us after a summer at Camp Wabunakee.
They taught John and me all the camp songs.”A Cannibal King with the Big Nose Ring,” “Peace I ask of Thee oh River,” and others in unknown dialects. My sister Lee reminded me that she and Pam were not interested in out of the way islands and wild coasts after roughing it at camp. Give them the sociable harbors like Northeast Harbor. Lee was in 7th and Pam in 9th grade, and they liked civilization. The dynamics of our family life changed as did the sleeping arrangements. All four kids slept on air mattresses in the cockpit under the steering shelter. Mosquito netting hung down to keep the buggers out. In this era, you had to blow up your mattress every night. We raced and almost passed out. We pulled the plug on anyone being a brat.
NW of Quoddy Narrows (what is a quoddy?) is the fishing town of Lubec. Where there’s fishing there’s seagulls galore and gunky water too. We continued up Lubec Narrows to Eastport. Both towns claim to be the easternmost town in the US. Mom’s practical notes about Eastport remarked of an A&P and an excellent meat market, but no ice. We had an old ice box requiring a diet of two blocks every three days. Eastport was good for an ice cream cone. Sardine canneries dominated the harbor. Our boat, the Phyllis, was too clean to be a bona fide fishing boat around Eastport and Lubec. My Mom and sisters voted in a block for more civilization so we were forced to go north again to St Andrews.
St Andrews by the Sea ought to tell you something about the nature of the place. We anchored off a pier which looked hopefully close to the mercantile area. The extreme tides of 29 ft. rise and fall worry a conscientious skipper. Dad let out “tremendous amount of scope on the anchor line” according to Mom’s notes. She also remarked that there were “two wonderful china shops with all the English patterns; two tweed shops, plus many gift shops with delightful people.” Lee said we all bought wool hats, probably at the tweed shop. John and I could do without the delightful people. I begged for maple sugar of course. I still crave it. Lee, Pam, and Mom traipsed around the stores and we younger ones succeeded in conning all into ice cream cones. We slurped them all the way to the pier. We all exclaimed at once how much the tide had dropped.
At first we didn’t see the rowboat. Upon further inspection, we gazed at the spectacle of a high and dry rowboat dangling from its painter. Dad picked his way down the slimy ladder and lowered her down. It was the gooiest ladder in all of New Brunswick. We had our ice and some fresh groceries and a tummy full of ice cream. Mom had her culture, Pam and Lee saw people. Now we were headed for a deserted island in the morning. St Andrews was Canada, a foreign country, with lots of English stuff. Pendleton Island, across Passamaquoddy Bay, was uninhabited and had a special little swimming cove we desired to explore. We were to find much more.
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