Toews ‘r Us — a family sailing adventure

Latitude: 44°03'53.88"N, Longitude: 69°46'6.96"W
Location: Eastern River, Dresden, Maine, Map It

Smelting is a great winter pastime in Maine.  For those of you who haven’t been, let me describe a typical trip:

In Maine, their are typically ice shacks for rent.  They are rented by the tide, and the shack and bait typically costs $40-50 for the 6 or so hours - four people can fit into the shack so roughly $10/person.   You’ll usually need reservations so call ahead.  We usually go to James Eddy Smelt Camps, but their are lots of them to choose from. 

The trip usually starts with a trip to the supermarket to get some food, snacks and possibly beer.  Although the beer is optional, there aren’t too many shacks on the river without it.  Once all the necessary supplies are in place, the trip can begin: head on up to the smelt camp and park in the muddy lot.  Head on down to the trailer to settle up, pick up your bait (sand worms) and your shack assignment.  You’ll need to bring a flashlight to see where you’re going because it seems the best time to go smelting is during the hours of darkness.  I’m not sure why, that’s just the way it is, I think it has something to do with the beer.

 The shacks are set up with two trenches in the ice and two light bulbs and a kerosene heater.  Fishing can be done with the tackle (strings) provided, but we like to bring our own little ice fishing rods.  A typical catch is measured in quarts or buckets on a good night.  I haven’t described them yet but smelt are pretty small 5-8inches or so.  Cleaning is easy - just cut off the head, slit the stomach and slip out the guts.  There’s a lot of them, but it’ll be worth the trouble.

Smelt are best coated with milk, egg and flour and then fried, skin and all.  Just pop them in your mouth and let them melt away.  They are so sweet and yummy.  I can usually eat 30-50 of them myself.

Saturday was a lousy night for smelting.  Between Wayde and I we only got 30 total - rotten fishing - but the beer was good.

Latitude: 43°48'25.55"N, Longitude: 70°9'11.28"W
Location: Greene Marina, Yarmouth, Maine, Map It

ayuh by Type A

When in Maine, if “ayuh” you should hear
In response to your question, don’t fear:
We’re denoting accord,
And mean nothing untoward—
It means “yes” to the people up here.

(ay-YUH) This pronunciation guide doesn’t do justice to the way this word really sounds when spoken by a Downeast Mainer. The first syllable is quite short, and the second syllable rises and is and abruptly cut off. This word is being heard less as the older generation dies off, and because the language is being assimilated as more people “from away”, that is “outta statahs”, move to Maine.

More than indicating a simple “yes”, “ayuh” could also mean, “Yes, that’s right. I wholeheartedly agree with you.” It is, as you can see, more efficient.

New England isn’t really known for the abundance of catamarans, but there’s a little hole in the wall marina in Yarmouth, Maine - Greene Marina - that has more multihull boats then I’ve seen at any other marina in this area of the northeast.  Driving into the driveway, I couldn’t believe my eyes - all I could think was ”ayup this is Maine.”  I got there about 10 min before the broker and started to look around.  I found the boat, sitting right next to the river.  The gelcoat is in pretty rough shape and I could see the davits have been beat, bent, kinked and rewelded.  The boat is roughly 13 years old with only one owner, so I was surprised the condition was so bad. 

My brother, Chris, emailed me this today

Here’s Mike at age 70.

I think he’s making fun of me!  He’s not being very nice.

I was surfing some sailing blogs today - I found Messing About in Sailboats.  They have a pretty cool map that allows the readers to post their favorite sailing spots on a map.  That’s a great idea - why don’t I do that here?  Well there’s no reason I can’t.

I learned some Google Maps while getting ready for this site, and one of the things that I learned was allowing users to post on the maps.  Of course I’m not clever enough to figure out the uses for it, but I know a good idea when I see it.  Their site is designed by a third party and hosted on another site: which makes it pretty cumbersome.  I think by hosting it here we can have a more user friendly map.

Any other ideas for maps that you’d like to see?  Let me know.

Latitude: 43°5'10.32"N, Longitude: 70°49'21.24"W
Location: Pease ANGB, Map It

“Let’s see now… SOUTH POLE?  Oh, I get it. I should have turned left at Albuquerque.”

Yesterday’s high in Miami was 83°.  I should have been enjoying that, but instead I was here in New Hampshire in the blistering -3° wind chill.  Our snowfall for the year had been a dismal 7 inches until this week.  We more than doubled that with a foot or so of snow over the last two days. 

Things were a mess; most flights were cancelled out of Boston, my port of departure to Miami.  I spent roughly 2 hours on the phone and surfing the web trying to rebook my flights so I could still get to Miami for the show.  I tried 3 different airports here, 3 more in Florida and several airlines.  Not one flight that would get me there in time for the boat show. I feel like Bugs Bunny, he couldn’t make it to Miami either.

I couldn’t get out, so I cancelled my leave, and because the main reason I’m on duty at Pease ANGB is to plow snow, I went to work.  I work the graveyard shift during snow storms, so I’m on from 7pm to 7am.  It’s quite an adjustment to change shifts every time it snows, or threatens to snow.  It does wonders for my sleeping.

What to do now?  We’ve got to start looking at boats and we had several set up to look at on Friday.  I don’t think that I’ll be able to see so many boats at one place again any time soon.  We want to be in our boat by June, so we need to see as many boats as possible quickly. 

Poor Mike. He was so excited about going to Miami for the boat show. I was excited for him and secretly jealous because he was going to be sporting shorts and I was going to be running the snow blower for a predicted Nor’ Eastern snow storm coming our way. He was finally getting the opportunity to look at some sailing catamerans and spending time with Kenny, his best friend. They had big plans but they were cancelled due to the big snow storm that hit before he could fly out. His flight was cancelled and he couldn’t get any other flights out. He is now working the night shift plowing the runways wishing he was relaxing by or swimming in Las Palmas’ pool. It has turned out to be quite the storm just as predicted and we are presently at about a foot of snow and it’s still coming. My baby has a long night ahead of him.