Port Clyde

July 26, 2014 – Michael and I worry together.  Me about some things, him about others.  We arrive at the dock in Port Clyde four-and-a-half hours before our scheduled departure for Monhegan Island in order to pay for a week’s parking and get the low down on the what’s and how’s.

We are too early. They just aren’t prepared for advanced planning.  We are told to return at 1 p.m. and go have lunch in the meantime. When the attendant asks if we have plans for lunch, Michael replies, “I thought we’d eat here.  Isn’t it the best place around?”

A surly, burly Mainer replies, “Not according to Trip Advisor.  The best place is Doug’s, about a mile down the road in a guy’s front yard. You can’t miss it. Best bang for your buck around here.”

Back at the Port Clyde dock at 1 o’clock, we are still two hours early.  We unload what Michael considers too much stuff, however, our stash is small compared to others.

We make sure our luggage has tags bearing the name of the cottage where we will be staying — Ink Spot. Necessary identification for the trucks that will pick our luggage up at the dock in Monhegan and deliver it to our rental — at the edge of the road. There are also blue dots showing today’s date for the captain of Monhegan Boat Line. I guess they must be a bit wary of freeloaders.

We head to the bar beside the dock where I down a Dark and Stormy and Michael has a local beer, blowing at least one of the hours of our two-hour wait. Returning to the dock we sit with others.

And wait.

Monhegan – A Place to Love

Monhegan is as Monhegan was fifteen years ago when we took a vow to come back. Except, it seems, there may be more houses. My traveling acquaintances, husband and wife (she reminds me of Martha Stewart in voice and manner) retired architects from NYC who come on a regular basis, say, “Of course there are more houses, it’s been fifteen years.”

So different, but oh so much the same.  And I LOVE IT!

After making sure our luggage will arrive via island pick-up to our new home we follow the directions given to me several months ago to find the house.

Walk up the hill from the dock, and turn right at the Lupine Gallery. Keep walking, past the swim beach, past the post office and when you get to the church veer to your right.  Follow the road till you pass a house with a single spruce tree on your right and another with a handmade wooden gate on your left.  Continue walking, you will come to an area that seems like if you take it you will be walking through someone’s yard, but it doesn’t matter.  Walk up the grassy area and the house will be in front of you.

OK.

The Ink Spot

Our new home feels like Grandma’s farm.  I am in a wee place called heaven.  There are flowers everywhere. Everywhere.  E-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.  Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!! The house is full of antiques and has a true country kitchen. From the front porch you walk into the dining room (just like Grandma’s) and the table is covered with a very colorful oil cloth.  A set of narrow, very narrow, green stairs lead to the two bedrooms.  It really is my wee heaven!

The house, equipped with electricity two years ago, still has gas lamps. We learn how to light the gas lamps—just in case.

“They are better than the oil lamps—less smelly and give off warmth in the chilly evenings and mornings,” are the instructions given in a Downeast Maine accent. Water is a precious commodity here on the island and we are told how to conserve.  You don’t really want to know.

Dinner Reservations and Wine

I call for dinner reservations at the Island Inn and am told there is one available at 6:15.  We have dawdled too long and now must hurry, because if we want wine with our dinner we need to purchase it beforehand from a place other than the Inn. We arrive at Brackett’s Market fifteen minutes too late, I hear, “Chaaaarr-loootte.”

“Don’t worry there is one more place,” I reassure Michael.

We hurry down to the dock, hoping this time we will find an unlocked door. Luck is with us.  We grab a bottle of wine for dinner and two more for the week — and two muffins for breakfast. The last blueberry muffin available and a strawberry rhubarb combination.  I am instructed to take tonight’s bottle of wine to the restaurant and wait while Michael makes a mad dash to the house to stash the remainder of our purchases. He arrives back at the Island Inn exactly on time. Just a wee bit breathless.

The Long Walk Home

I have fallen into a storybook world—white picket fences, flowers blooming profusely, meandering lanes.  No cars. No people. We return home at the end of the day; the sun sinking slowly over the uninhabited island of Manana across the bay from Monhegan.

It is 10:30 p.m. before I fully unpack and am ready for bed. Michael fell asleep on the daybed in the living room hours ago. Mine is not to reason why — mine is just to do.