July 7-11                      Southwest Harbor, Maine

After brunch on the aft deck, we walked the dock to the parking lot to say farewell to Blake and Amanda.  The weather was perfect for their flight from Bar Harbor to Boston and then on to DFW.  I returned to the boat and began laundry and cleaning.  At 2:30 I stopped, had a light lunch and retired to the sofa with my book.  David had strict instructions to leave me there undisturbed. I was officially on vacation!

The lobster boats came into the dock after five o’clock and our dockmaster secured four lobsters for us.  These were even more beautiful than the ones we had bought in Beverly.  Each one was a minimum of two pounds with both claws intact.  Price was less than $20.00.

We boiled the lobsters and put them in the refrigerator to cool while we borrowed the marina courtesy car for a short trip into Southwest Harbor to the grocery store.  Sawyer’s Market is small and definitely upscale.  The wine section takes up half their space and they have an even larger space across the street dedicated to wine and cheeses.  Pates, mustards from France, New York deli items, and prime angus beef were available in abundance.  More ordinary items such as regular crackers and cereals were limited.  We bought fresh corn and returned to the boat for another New England lobster dinner.  Fantastic!  We could only eat one lobster each so we saved the others for a lobster salad the next day.

The cool weather, sunshine, and beautiful scenery tends to make one quite content to just sit and enjoy the ambiance.  We had to make ourselves set small goals in order to assure we were at least semi-productive.  David was delighted when Phil invited him on a dinghy cruise of the harbor.  In the next cove, they saw the 140' sailing yacht of Charles Butts, the HEB heir from Texas.

Dinner on Sunday was at a small Italian restaurant with the Hardbergers.  We enjoyed hearing Phil’s story of how he ran for and won the mayoral race in San Antonio eight years ago.  Although he won the initial race by a small margin, he handily won re-election several years later. He was too modest to tell us ( but others had done so) that he was one of the best mayors in recent San Antonio history and had contributed significantly to making the city financially sound and a major tourist destination.

We were delighted on Monday to have a man come to repair the icemaker and install the new water pump.  Within a few hours, he had both of them working and was able to complete a few other small chores for us.  Having not been used for some time, the water in the tank was stagnant and when pumped through the lines smelled like 100 rotten eggs.  Following advice we read on the internet, we spent hours flushing, filling, and re-flushing the 330 water tank until finally we deemed its output to be acceptable.

We have an interesting neighbor in the marina who is a celebrity in the boating world.  Bruce Kessler is a retired television director who has circumnavigated the globe and made numerous voyages on the West and East Coasts of the United States.  His boat, The Spirit of Zopelote, is a 64’ Northern Marine trawler with a British Racing Green hull.  It was recently portrayed on the cover of Passageways Magazine which contained a long article about Kessler and his adventures.

Southwest Harbor celebrates Flamingo Festival this weekend with many events to benefit local charities.  Almost every home and business is festooned with pink plastic flamingoes. An icon of the tropics, the flamingo seems to be out of place in Maine but a local told me that lobsters were too commonplace for display.  We plan to attend the charity lobster bake on Saturday which will be held here in the marina.