Stonington and Vinalhaven

Before the rains on Monday afternoon, we headed in for a short visit to Stonington. Aptly named, the area is famous for granite stone cutting and carving.  Although the quary on nearby Crotch Island has been dormant for years, we understand that it has reopened on a contract basis.  There was certainly new wiring on the big cranes and the humming of large equipment as we sailed past the island.

The small town of Stonington is definitely tourist oriented.  Cute shops and wonderful seafood places to eat, all in an old Maine setting.

We treated ourselves to a warm lunch splitting a haddock sandwich and a bowl of Stonington clam chowder.  Let me tell you, Stonington clam chowder is NOT Chesapeake clam chowder.  I'm used to - and spoiled by - thick creamy chowder that you can stand a spoon up in.  Nope, Stonington advertises - correctly - it's chowder as thin broth with full clams.  It is.  Thin and biggg rascals of tough and chewey clams.  Tasty, though.

It began to rain on Monday evening and poured all day on Tuesday.  Just as well.  I came down with a miserable sinus headache and sniffles.  Slept all day.  By evening, the rain broke and gave us a beautiful sunset, promising the nice day on Wednesday.

A mere 12 miles later, on Wednesday, we negotiated the minefield of lobster floats to enter the Vinalhaven harbor.  Vinalhaven  http://www.vinalhaven.org/   is the only town on the island, located in the midde of the Penobscot Bay.  This is definitely a working town, with the most densely filled mooring field in Maine, according to the guidebooks.  Not desiring  cruising boaters, there is only 1 guest mooring in the field of over 100 boats.  We were fortunate enough to ask the right lobsterman about a mooring we might rent.  He offered his extra mooring to us at no charge!  Took us to it by his little boat and helped us secure the mooring ball!  This photo cannot begin to show the boats in this harbor.

Securely moored within inches of the next boat, we set off to explore the island.  Here is a bit of town from the water view.

As the only town on the island, this place is great!  PO, big grocery store, restaurants, YARN shops, used book shop, library, handcrafted jewelry store, art museums, ice cream, town park, newspaper store, and on and on, right on main street. 

 As soon as we docked the dinghy and came ashore, we couldn't help but notice this huge building.

For a size reference, that is the PO beside it, on the left. This is the historic Star of Hope Lodge built in 1885, with a mansard roof.  A concert hall today?  Nope, the private home of Robert Indiana.  We didn't recognize the name, but he is the famous artist/sculpture who did the LOVE sculpture in 1964!     http://www.scottsdalepublicart.org/collection/love.php  He is said to have lived here year round until his death in 1999.

Loberstering is important here - here is Vinalhaven's local sculpture, located at the ice cream shop.

A walk through town took us to the town park, where we found a restored "galamander".  This finally answers our questions about how the heck the granite workers moved those huge rocks. The large horizontal beam on top is a lever, pivoting on the rear axel, which lifts the stones off the groubnd for transport.  The back wheels on this thing are 9 feet in diameter.  Pulled by a team of oxen, the galamander dragged the carved stones from the quary to the dock.

Beautiful grand old homes, with upkeep that I cannot imagine!

We ran into a couple who told us about a nice walk behind the local medical center.  It was a gradual climb, up the granite rocks and shrubs, to a nice overview of the ocean.

It also gave me this view of our flag, flying high above the tree line.  Makes you feel proud, doesn't it.

More patriotism, this is the granite sculpture at the town dock.  The eagle is probably 4 feet tall, sitting on 5 foot tall blocks of granite.  You can see where the blocks were mined and cut in the granite quary by the  numerous small cuts at the top of the blocks. Small holes are chisled into the rock along the desired cut line. Small split steel rods are then inserted, and a wedge inserted into the split. The wedges are driven into the split steel rods all along the cut line untill the rock splits. What you see is 1/2 of the small chisled holes remaining. Italian granite chislers were brought in to do all of the fine chisling. No wonder there was low unemployment!

We awoke on Thursday morning to dense fog - again.

So, we made lemonade out of lemons and took the dinghy back to town to go again to the used book store, jewelry store, yarn shop, and  a bit of walking.  By 2p.m. the fog had lifted and we sailed the 15 miles to Rockland. The harbor master graciously left the 1 washer/dryer room open for us after he left.  Laundry was completed by 10 p.m. last night and we plan to head for Castine today (after we go back to the laundromat and retrieve the 3 pairs of jeans that I left in the dryer.....)