10-4-10 Lunenburg

Monday- crisp and sunny

Ann writes:

Needed an extra blanket to sleep well last night. Got into town around 9 am for a yummy blueberry tea biscuit at Sweet Indulgence. It was more like a fritter really. The have wireless internet and terrible, milky mocha's- the waitress tried really hard to make one and asked how it was, so I'm not sure what happened there.

We got to the Atlantic Fisheries Museum in time for the 10:30 Lobster Lore talk. I really enjoyed the young docent's presentation and even got to pet a very unhappy lobster. Amongst other things, I learned:

• Lobsters can be any one of the 3 primary colors- yellow, blue, or the dominant red
• Lobsters hate each other and fight constantly. The ones in the tank with the longest feelers are freshest because the feelers get bitten off
• Boys have bigger claws, but girls have bigger tails (to carry the eggs), so choose according to which meat you prefer
• Anything bigger than 2 lbs will be tough and more likely to be caught in fishnets than a lobster trap.
• Rubbing a lobster on the head will calm him down.

We checked out all the outdoor boats on display and had a great conversation with the captain/docent on the Theresa E. Connor. He was from Jersey, which was one of the abandoned outports we saw across from Harbor Breton, Newfoundland. They had much less than Grand Bruit - no outhouses, pails for water, and a warm brick in bed for heat; much later a generator for the town that was started each evening and run until morning. His sailing career of 31 years was cut short by corporate buyout. He tried the Icehouse and Walmart before landing the job at the museum.

After Jon "launched" a schooner, we found the recommended Magnolia Grill with a line waiting for lunch. We finally both had the scaw-lup chowder and fishcakes. I decided they were ok, and more like fish than those at Fisherman's Friend, but I'd rather have straight fish. I imagine that wasn't a choice when they were devised by combining what fish they had with potatoes.

Jon from Napa and John from San Diego launch a schooner in Lunenburg

I zipped through the gift shops while Jon had his latte, but got hung up talking to artist Gail Patriarche. I couldn't believe she was working on a full sheet watercolor paper (300lb) with just a little grumbacher travel kit. She gets impressively rich color for a watercolorist- I wonder if it's because working from pans can lead to using more pigment and less water. She gave me some tips - strongly believes self learning from books is better than classes so that you can synthesize your own style from many artists, not just one teacher. I bought one of her prints to be mailed home. I noticed her bio says she uses Henemuhle w/c paper and Ultrachrome Inks - that means an Epson inkjet!

Later, Jon looked up giclee and it's just the French word for inkjet, spraying through nozzles, and was coined to distinguish from off-set lithography. AND, more importantly, the original giclees were printed on very expensive Iris printers with dye-based inks, whereas todays pigmented inks are far superior in quality. Bottom line: My prints are giclees!

(n.b. apparently have to use the term with some caution in France where the actual term, having to do with nozzles, has taken on an obscene meaning in some regions.)

We returned to the museum a lot later than intended, which meant, fortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to linger over the displays covering death at sea. The Bluenose history was much more inspiring and encouraging, and with that we finally sailed out of Lunenberg around 6:15 pm.


Jon writes:


We walked around town looking at the peculiar bay hip dormer that is called the "Lunenburg bump" by the real estate people here. There were a few in Mahone Bay but quite a lot in Lunenburg.

The distinctive Lunenburg Bump

The next two days were forecast to be winds from the northeast and then east at 20 - 25 knots, thereafter clocking around from the southwest and west  at 35. The course is southwest down the coast of Nova Scotia, then turning the corner at Cape Sable west northwest to Mt. Desert Island. So it would be downwind to Maine for the next two days, but upwind for several days thereafter: a guarantee of a slow and uncomfortable sail. Based on that, we decided to leave Lunenburg just before sunset, sail through the next day and night which would have us arriving the 2nd morning if we could maintain about 6.5 knots average. This seemed preferable to sitting out another several days on the Nova Scotia coast waiting for better weather which might never come in October. So we slipped the mooring and left Lunenburg, hoisting sail just outside of the harbor and tacking into the southeast wind out to sea and towards the USA.

Leaving Lunenburg harbor, Maine lies 230 miles ahead

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine