Crews News

                                                                                courtesy of Shary Fellows

That's me up on the staging, shingling our dock building for the second time. Capt. Doug and I have been picking away at the water side of the building as weather permits for the last month. Cedar shingles only last forty years, so it was time. When we did this the last time we also made the shingles with Doug and Linda's old belt driven mill, which they sold before any of us lost fingers. In the 1970's we nailed them on; this time we used stainless steel staples and an air stapler.

Working out on the face of the dock has been instructive as lobster boats come in, unload their catch, take on bait and fuel, and warm up the late fall breeze with conversation.  It's late enough in autumn now for  loons to settle into a territory for the winter and one or two have been watching us most of the day between diving for crabs and small fish. This week was also the annual Maine loon count: 3200 or so, twice the number when the count started in 1984.

Two more days of usable weather and we can go on to some other shipyard off- season projects, such as building a shed over our second thirty-inch thickness planer. We're not moving this one inside the shop, it weighs nearly 6000 pounds.

Meanwhile, Sarah has let three seasons of pie making on board cool and has been restoring her house in Washington, Maine. She has enough sense here to work indoors most of the time, varnishing the rigging blocks and soon starting on the schooner's small boats. She has also helped with our railway this fall, hauling and launching the  Lettie G. Howard and presently the  Laura B ,  the Monhegan mailboat.

Christa is carpentering up around Sugarloaf and starting yoga classes and getting ready for another winter of ski instructing when she isn't running a small coffee shop.

Matthew is baking in Portland at the Standard Baking Co.; worth a visit if you're in the city by the bay. And Shary here in the office even took some time off!