May 1, Thursday – a good day, some rain, temp. 46 at noon, wind SSW 12 knots. A nice May basket of goodies to start our day from Ann Fernald and Lillian Alley, our nearby neighbors. Lobster fishing is at low ebb, as usual, this time of year. Price now is $5 per lb. A set over is needed to make a day’s hauling worthwhile. A change of bait most always helps, Dad used to say, so long as the lobsters are partial to it. A baiting of alewives seems to get the critters crawling, and a fresh baiting of herring, when available, always gets results.
Sunday, May 4 – wind NE at noon 12 knots and temp. 58. Quite a few of our lobster boats are hauled up, being painted and repaired at the Ocean House area at Manset. Warren Fernald’s boat, MOTHER ANN, was launched from there recently, all ready to go except for a big of engine work by Dana Haynes at NE Harbor. Ted Jr. has his boat PANDORA at the Ocean House area doing some work. Steve Pagels, who is managing and owns the ferry service to the Cranberry Isles from Manset and SW Harbor ports this year, has had the ISLAND QUEEN, which he bought from Chuck Liebow, renovated from this spot and will be ready to start soon. Chuck will be his boat skipper on some of the runs.
Thursday, May 8 – Temp. 50 at noon. Wind SSW, 10 knots. A funeral and memorial service for my cousin, Joyce Hadlock Rogers, today in our Congr. Church at 11 a.m. Rev. Doug Hare conducted the service, which had a large attendance. His wife, Ruth, at the piano and Jeri Spurling accompanied her on the flute and also sang “Amazing Grace.” Burial was at the Hadlock-Stanley cemetery. Joyce died at Ellsworth on May 4. She is at rest now near her mother and father and many of her Hadlock ancestors. Her first Hadlock ancestor was Sam, whose tall monument is nearby. Joyce’s brother, Dale, and myself have raised some money for the town to put in a trust to give perpetual care to this little island cemetery.
May 15, Thursday – Wind east, light, temp. 48 at noon. Full “flower moon” tonight. An eclipse besides. “La Luna” is at perigee also, which gives us extra high and low tides for a few days. It is ribbon cutting day at Manset on Mount Desert Island at the Cranberry Isles’ new land property. More than 100 people gathered there along with newspaper reporters and those from television. The three-acres-plus includes docks and 137 parking spots for cars. Most already have been snapped up. Capt. Pagels will begin his summer ferry schedule to the islands on June 16. His schedule for leaving Islesford is easy to remember: 8 a.m., 10 a.m., 12 noon, 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Off island parking during our summer months, for many years now, has been a great problem for a lot of people. I would like to include a very expressive about it composed by Chris Wriggins of Islesford, and I have his permission. Here it is…
If Once You Have Looked for a Parking Space
If once you have looked for a parking space you’ll never be quite the same.
You’ll wonder why you ever came to the Cranberry Isles of Maine.
You may bustle about the Joy Road lot, but spaces look awfully tight.
And all around are signs that say: “No Parking Overnight.”
You may chat with neighbors for docking tips to skirt the two-hour rule,
But the Harbormaster nearly always takes you for a fool.
You may, in haste, give up and drive your car into a thicket –
and hope and pray the cops won’t see, and write another ticket.
You might be able to squeeze in here in there was an extra inch…
Beside the bank or clinic too, might do in a pinch.
Oh, you won’t know why and you can’t say how a scofflaw you became –
But once you have looked for a parking space you’ll never be quite the same!
By Chris Wriggins, with apologies to Rachel Field
Islesford hosted this year’s Inter-Island Event. About 15 kids and some adults arrived from Frenchboro, Monhegan, Isle au Haut and Matinicus islands today. They joined our school’s 13 students. They set up tents outside the Neighborhood House and then had a two-hour scavenger hunt. They also played games in the town field and had a community pot luck supper in the evening. After that some of them walked Gilley Beach. After breakfast on Friday they left near noontime with plans to get together next year on another island.
May 23, Friday – Temp. 54, wind NE 15 knots, rain and drizzle in A.M., overcast in P.M. Hugh Dwelley, our Islesford Hist. Soc. President, has informed us that the society has just published an attractive collection of ballads titled “Ballads of the Cranberry Isles.” Some are sung by the late Capt. Archie Spurling with pictures of both him and his fiddle-playing brother, Fred Spurling. Price is $10.
Monday, May 26 – Memorial Day. Wind ENE at 15 knots. Temp. 53. Rain off and on.
Bruce and Barbie Fernald had a very interesting time in Seattle, Washington, over the Memorial Day weekend. They flew out and back. They were invited to participate in the Northwest Folklife Festival. They spent four days in a tent and talked to many people about the Maine lobster industry. They shared a booth with a Dungenes crab fisherman and his wife from Oregon. Bruce demonstrated how to build a Maine wire lobster trap, while Mark Barnhardt, the crabman, was knitting 20-gauge stainless steel wire into his welded metal crab traps.
Thursday, May 29 – Temp. 60, wind SW 6 knots. The Islesford school children today performed an opera in five acts. It was called “The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.” It was written and composed by the school kids with the help of Sonja Moser as director and Sally Bloom as musical director. Danny Wriggins was Joe the Pig. It was a fine show held at 7:30 p.m. at the Neighborhood House. Many from here came to see it, and others from off island.
Sunday, June 1 – wind NE at noon and 20 knots. Temp. 49 and foggy. A cold day to start the month. Church today. Barometer low at 29:14. I remember an old weather verse from my boyhood. Here it is: When the wind is in the north, the skillful fisher goes not forth! When the wind is in the east, ’tis neither good for man nor beast! When the wind is in the south, it blows the bait from the fishes’ mouth! But when the wind is in the west, then it is the very best!
The different points of the compass remind me of the day in May in 1941, when I went to Portland to hopefully get my first marine license. Things were simpler then and the shipping inspector asked me to “box the compass,” which required you to name the 32 points. I was able to oblige and then after answering a few more questions on safety afloat and rules of the road, I passed the exam. He had visited the Cranberry Isles, he told me, and also said that most of the good seafaring men he met while there were either Bunker, Stanley of Spurling. I said, “my mother is a Stanley,” and this seemed to please him. Possibly it helped. The licenses at that time were by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and not the U.S. Coast Guard as they are today.
June 8, Sunday – Temp. 52, wind NE at 12 knots, foggy in A.M. High water 6 A.M. There was a good safety demonstration at our lobster co-op dock today. John Mc Millan, from McMillan Offshore Survival Training, came to Islesford and gave instructions to 18 of our local fishermen who lined up on the float there and took part in the Cold Water Survival Course. They wore their rubber suits and experienced how it feels to be in the water with them on and also how best to store a life raft on the boat and how deploy it and get on it in the water. The group learned many things. Coast Guard instructors took part in this occasion also, and showed videos of boat sinkings and fires and how to handle them. Bruce Fernald learned of this course at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in March, and was able to schedule this valuable class. The lobster co-op dock has its new bait and freight boat, DIVIDEND, now an
d is very pleased with it.
June 10, Tuesday – Wind SW 15 knots and temp. 65 at noon. It was a misty morn. Voting today at the Neighborhood House, on whether or not to accept a bond issue. Our telephone went out today. Some say it is the cable to the island. Hope it is not the underwater section….
Graduation at the Neighborhood House tonight. We have two graduating this year from our Islesford School. They are Danielle McCormick and Emily Thomas. Over at Mount Desert Island High School there are two who have homes here. They are graduates Laura Merrill and Jesse Krasnow. Jasmine Samuel has graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall School at Wallingford, Connecticut. Her sister, Cary Samuel, graduated on May 18 from Colgate University at Hamilton, N.Y. Their mother, Joy, and their grandmother, Betty, attended both graduations.
June 11 – our telephone came back early this morning. It was the cable, they say, but not the part that is underwater. A section underground at SW Harbor had to be repaired. It was soused with water during road work.
June 13 – winds light, temp. 50, morning overcast. Father’s Day today. A large fleet of boats followed the SEA QUEEN and DOUBLE B of Beal and Bunker Boating, more than 30 boats in all, for a memorial service for Karl Wedge, lobster fisherman of Great Cranberry Island, who died Dec. 28, 2002. The boats proceeded to Preble Cove, Great Cranberry, where Karl’s ashes were committed to the ocean with a service by Rev. Harold Mortimer, who had also presided at Karl’s funeral service at Somesville, earlier.
June 21, Saturday – Temp. at noon 65, wind SSW at 6 knots. Sunny today, some clouds. An afternoon wedding today at the Congregational church united two members of earlier Islesford families, when Annie Smallwood became the bride of Chandler Morse. Annie is the daughter of Hugh Smallwood and the late Lannie Smallwood and Karen Fernald Smallwood. Chandler is the non of Nina H. Ward and Tom Morse. His great grandfather, Fred Morse, came to Islesford in the late 1800s and was a renowned photographer of black and white photographs made with the use of glass plates. The Islesford Dock Restaurant started its 11th season by hosting the couple’s reception.
Sunday, June 29 – temp. 70 at noon, wind SSW, light. A warm and sunny day. A memorial service at the Sand Beach Cemetery at 2 p.m. today for Hildegarde Fernald Smith, an old island friend and nearby neighbor of mine all through our childhood and for many years beyond. Hildegarde was a very capable woman and a good friend to Cara and me, from the day she decorated our wedding cake in 1949.
June 30 – temp. 65, wind SW 8 knots at noontime. Cory Alley, in his boat JULLIAN, caught two halibut today, 58 lbs. And 38 lbs. His cousin Jeremy Alley was with him. Yesterday he also had good fishing with his 40-hook trawl. On this day he got three of the choice flatfish. These halibut weighed 57, 38 and 18 lbs. each. His cousin, Andrew Moody, was his crewman this time. The Restaurant Dock bought one whole fish from his catch yesterday. Cory is certainly the “king” of the halibut fishermen in our area and celebrated the last day of June in good style.
– Ted Spurling Sr.
Islesford