Wiscasset and The Musical Wonder House

We started this morning waiting for the thick, thick fog to lift before we departed Five Islands, 100 yds visibility. This is how we often wait, but sometimes little Wickie isn't the only one dozing... and yes, that's a sweatsuit! This is Maine, y'all!

We had an uneventful trip up the Sheepscot River to Wiscasset, until the current in the river became so strong that it pulled the lobster pot floats under water. Some had only their sticks showing, some were literally 2 feet under. Now, there are trillions of lobster floats in Maine, and a lot of them seemed to be up this river.

It's hard enough to see and avoid them when they are normal, but under water! impossible! Luke stood guard on the bow of the boat and helped direct me around them as I steered. Even with that, we ran over a few. Fortunately nothing caught the propeller and we made it to Wiscasset ok. Unnerved, but ok.

We got our revenge, though. We ate lobster rolls at Red's Eats. Red's Eats had a PBS documentary done about them several years ago. They were declared as having the best lobster rolls in Maine. Everyone must believe it...when we first arrived, the line to order was around the building. These were undoubtedly the best we've had. A lobster roll is usually lobster salad (lobster, mayo, a few spices) on a hot dog type roll. This was pure lobster on the same type roll. It was as much meat as a whole lobster without the mess of having to open it.

Wiscasset is an old fishing town that used to be an international customs clearing station for international trade back in the 1760's. In fact, one ship captain here had a plan to save Queen Marie Antoinette from the guillotine by bringing her here. Her furniture, artwork, clothes, etc, were already loaded onto his ship but the French locals got her just before she escaped. Anyway, it's a quaint town with lots of restored homes, antique shops, and museums. Luke found the perfect museum --- the The Musical Wonder House . He gets to tell about it---

This was a collection of hundreds of mostly "high end" collectors item music boxes. The machines were explained and demonstrated -- most sounded really good. Some interesting facts: The music box era was from about 1835 through 1903. Until 1873, the music was stored on cylinders - very tedious and expensive to make -- apparently custom for each individual machine. The machines around that time were very expensive at about $600 in those dollars. The cylinders were about $150. In 1873, the wily Germans invented the music disc - about 16 inches in diameter, where little "chads" were punched into the metal discs. The down protruding chads brush across the individual "teeth" of the "comb" that produce the notes. This design lent itself to mass production, and the discs could be stamped out at one per second, and sold for $ 1. Because of the German patents, the Swiss came up with a chadless punched hole variation, and a Beta vs VHS like marketing struggle ensued. The era ended in 1903, when Thomas Edison invented the talking machine -- the gramophone. The market wanted recordings of the real thing, and the music box business died.

The picture below is of a disc machine, produced by a German person who moved to the US. In 1903, he came out with the the Reginaphone, a combination machine that could play both chadded discs and the new fangled gramophone records. That too was short lived, and in casting about for other ventures, he started producing a carpet sweeper. This evolved into the vacuum cleaner and was the start of today's Regina vacuum cleaners.

Again, we've run into the nicest people. We were told that the town has a couple of complimentary moorings for guests somewhere in the mass of mooring balls in this harbor. We found one, but it was tangled up. We had given up on the second one and decided to anchor for the night when a very nice man and his daughter motored up from the Wiscasset Yacht Club. They asked if we were looking for a mooring, offered one from a member who is away, and guided us to the mooring. Three cheers for the Wiscasset Yacht Club!!!!

We've been seeing harbor seals each day. They come up, take a look around, and gracefully dive back into the water. There is at least one in the Wiscasset harbor. Luke managed to catch a shot of him. It's not great, and is from a distance, but here it is. You CAN tell it's a seal head. Can't you? :-)