What better way to enjoy a stupefyingly beautiful day than by taking a walk on the Rockland breakwater?  This engineering marvel is a nearly mile-long pile of huge, flat-topped granite blocks with a lighthouse at the end that offers locals and visitors alike one of the most enjoyable walking  experiences to be found anywhere.

    The breakwater was built back in the late 19th century to protect Rockland harbor from the worst ravages of storms that periodically lash the Maine coast.  It took 18 years to complete the job and the lighthouse dates to the final year of construction, 1888. There is an attractive public park at the base of the breakwater and it has become one of Rockland's major attractions along with the Farnsworth art museum and Jess's Fishmarket. It is so much fun that Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. plan to do the walk several more times during their stay in Camden.

     In the afternoon they strolled over to the other side of Camden harbor to see a huge sailboat that had just backed up to the Wayfarer's gas pumps.  It turned out to be the Sarita, the English-flagged mega-yacht that recently spent a couple of weeks in the Wayfarer yard being refurbished. The vast motor yacht "Lady Gayle Marie" from New Orleans is still attached to the Wayfarer dock but the even bigger one that anchored in the outer harbor on Thursday has departed before Uncle Jack could find out what it was. Actually he is probably better off not knowing lest he come down with a bad case of yacht-envy.

     Several days of stifling heat and humidity ended last night and seasonably cool weather has returned to Camden.  Uncle Jack spent the first few minutes of this morning shutting all the windows he had left open last night lest he freeze to death before breakfast. You can believe him when he says he is not complaining about this. He came to Camden in hopes of escaping the enervating summer climate of North Carolina and he wasn't expecting this week's heat wave. Anyway it's over and he and Mrs. U.J. can resume their aerobic power walks around this beautiful city.

    The harbor was busy again yesterday and presented a few unusual sights.  At one point the schooner Appledore passed by their deck under sail which was a glorious sight and quite unusual inasmuch as she and the other schooners almost always leave the crowded harbor under power.  Uncle Jack made a short video which you can see by clicking on the YouTube link below the pictures.

     A few minutes later the magnificent old schooner "Mercantile" passed by under their deck carrying a load of happy passengers out into the bay.  It was the first time they had seen Mercantile which is one of the most colorful in the local fleet. She was built in Deer Isle in 1916 by the Billings family and spent many years hauling cargo up and down the coast before switching to the passenger trade after World War II.

     The colossal motor yacht "Lady Gayle Marie" is still moored at the Wayfarer dock this morning and late yesterday afternoon an even larger yacht (which may actually be a cruise ship from the size of it) anchored just outside the inner harbor.  Uncle Jack will try to find out more about it today. 

     Big doings in the harbor these days. The magnificent British-flagged yacht "Aeolian" tied up at the Wayfarer Marine docks yesterday and will shortly begin a four-month overhaul. The enormous mast will be removed and then the yacht will be hauled into Wayfarer's hangar-like workshop by the big blue traveler.  That should be exciting to watch and Uncle Jack will try to be there when it happens.

    Aeolian was built in Holland in 1998 and is available for charter at $33,500 a month or thereabouts which seems fairly reasonable when compared with the rentals on some of the houses north of Duck.  Google has a lot of information about this remarkable toy if you would like to learn more.  Click on      http://www.charterworld.com/index.html?sub=yacht-charter&charter=sailing-yacht-aeolian-835

     This morning (Thursday) the motor yacht "Lady Gayle Marie" loomed out of the fog and drizzle and tied up at the south end of the Wayfarer  dock.  It is now the biggest boat in the harbor by far as the pictures suggest.  Uncle Jack is not sure why this stupendous yacht is in Camden at the moment.  It might be just to refuel as it is tied up near the gas pumps.  To paraphrase Commodore Vanderbilt, if you have to ask how much the gas costs you can't afford it.

    Uncle Jack does know (through the miracle of Google) that the yacht belongs to the corporation that also owns the New Orleans Saints football team and it normally operates out of New Orleans. Katrina tore up its usual mooring place so it is now wandering.

    When the huge yacht was purchased by the Saints organization a few years ago it became a cause celebre in Louisiana because the Saints had just milked the state treasury for over a hundred million dollars, ostensibly to keep the team in New Orleans.  Among other things the Saints' owner, a wealthy car dealer named Tom Benson, uses the boat to entertain during the football season.  Much more info about this controversy is accessible at http://bbs.buccaneers.com/showthread.php?t=87126

You may have to look around a bit on this web page but it's all there if you click on the correct link.

    Never a dull moment in Camden harbor, or New Orleans for that matter. 

   Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. have spent most of the past two days in further pedestrian exploration of the town in which they are extremely happy to be spending the summer.  After several days of wandering through one lovely residential neighborhood after another they have concluded that Camden, Maine is the most beautiful town they have ever been lucky enough to visit.  Mendocino, California, the fake "Cabot Cove, Maine" in the TV series "Murder She Wrote" must now move to second place in their personal Baedeker. Why they didn't film the show in Camden shall remain a mystery.

     While Camden is home (or at least summer home) to a substantial number of the filthy rich it is not primarily their magnificent waterfront mansions that give the town its character.  Even the most modest neighborhoods where doublewide trailers and tiny bungalows mingle there is great pride of place reflected in the well-kept lawns, dazzling flower gardens and fresh paint.  This is a community that anyone would be proud to live in and it shows.

    The biggest single event of yesterday took place in the Wayfarer Marine Company's boatyard across the harbor. A huge sailing yacht named the Sarita has been up on blocks in the yard for the past several weeks getting its hull repainted.  We have wondered how Wayfarer's big blue "traveler" could possibly transport a boat that size and yesterday we found out.

      Uncle Jack interrupted his breakfast to race around the harbor and try to make a video of the event.  He got there in time but in his haste pushed the wrong button on the camera and succeeded only in getting a couple of stills.  You can take his word that it was an awe-inspiring sight to see that huge yacht picked up and plopped into the water like it was a bathtub toy.  The folks at Wayfarer Marine are a lot more competent than Uncle Jack and that's for sure.

    He was sitting on the deck when his summer neighbor, the gorgeous yacht "Anjacaa", returned from a spin in Penobscot Bay yesterday afternoon and he did succeed in making a short video of it docking.  Click on the YouTube link under the pictures to see it. 

     It was downright chilly yesterday---not conducive to deck-sitting but ideal for walking.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. explored another Camden neighborhood on foot and got plenty of aerobic exercise in the doing. Camden has its ups and downs but very little level ground to walk on. It's ideal for skateboarders of all ages as we discovered on our walk.

    The slightly inclement weather sent Uncle Jack back to the book he has been reading off and on for the past couple of weeks, namely "River Horse" by William Least Heat-Moon.  It's an exciting account of his travels from New York City to the mouth of the Columbia River by boat. Like all his books it's a great read (and a long one) and Uncle Jack recommends it to all armchair adventurers like himself.

    One of his favorite sports is looking up unusual words that Heat-Moon uses in his books.  Here's a small sample from "River Horse": alluvion, tumuli, embrangled, catenation, recrements, divagation, numilous, boscage, albescent, ataraxia, lacustrine.  If any of these words turn up in Uncle Jack's weblog one day you will know who to blame.

     After several aborted attempts Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. finally went to sea yesterday on the schooner Lazy Jack. They left the Camden town dock at 10:15 a.m. and returned two hours later after a delightful cruise among some of the nearby islands of Penobscot Bay.

    The Lazy Jack is one of a half-dozen similar boats that offer trips into the bay from Camden harbor.  He picked it for the way its name resonated with Uncle Jack's lifestyle these days and also because the owner-builder-skipper, a remarkable young man named Sean O'Connor, came highly recommended as a knowledgeable and articulate guide to the wonders of sailing in coastal Maine.

    They were not disappointed.  The boat was comfortable and uncrowded, the view of Camden and the surrounding hills and islands was magnificent, Sean was an engaging and informative host for his half-dozen passengers and Uncle Jack's only complaint was that the splendid excursion ended too soon. 

      Today he is going to redeem all his wine and beer bottles and see if he has enough money to do it all over again.

     Uncle Jack first heard the radio show called "The Humble Farmer"  last September when he and Mrs. U.J. visited Camden for the first time.  It's a simple show consisting of one hour of what Humble calls "old fashioned music" interspersed with his commentaries, which he calls "rants", on whatever comes to his well stocked mind---all delivered in an authentic Maine accent which he comes by naturally having lived in St. George, Maine all his life.

    When Uncle Jack first heard the show he thought it was one of the funniest programs he had ever heard in his life and having listened to dozens more in the past few months he has no reason to change his opinion.  The Humble Farmer, aka Robert Skoglund, is a very funny man who also has exquisite taste in jazz music of the 20's and 30's which also happens to be Uncle Jack's favorite kind.

     Humble has been entertaining New Englanders (Uncle Jack's daughter Emily listened to him faithfully when she lived in Massachusetts twenty years ago) on Maine Public Radio for nearly three decades.  He has a huge following in these parts who were devastated a week ago when the arch-conservative idiots who currently run Maine Public Radio unceremoniously booted him off the air for making unacceptable (to them) political comments.

     Fortunately for his listeners he continues to produce his program each week which can be heard through his website www.humblefarmer.com until such time that the right wing poobahs at MPR can be made to see the error of their ways.

    Uncle Jack's birthday dawned bright and beautiful this morning and he could not think of a better way to celebrate it than by driving down to St. George in the Mini and saying hello to Humble and his wife, Marsha, whom he calls "the almost perfect woman".  He also wanted to present Humble with a gift he imported from Minnesota, namely a cap inscribed "It's Hard to be Humble When You're Swedish", which Robert Skoglund, like U.J., happens to be.

     Even though we were unexpected visitors the Skoglunds greeted us like we were old friends and by the time we left an hour later, staggering under armloads of fresh rhubarb and pieces of blueberry cake baked by Marsha this morning, we actually felt like old friends.

    If you like to laugh by all means check out the Humble Farmer's website which is a hoot in itself.  www.humblefarmer.com

   Unless you are a very strange person you will be glad you did. 

     Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. had planned to take a two-hour windjammer cruise in Penobscot Bay yesterday but they got bumped at the last minute in a reservations mix-up. So they went to Plan B which was to check out the Camden Area History Center which is housed in a 19th century sea captain's house a short walk from their apartment in Camden.

     What a pleasant surprise! To be honest they weren't expecting much because previous visits to underfunded local museums operated by "historical societies" in other communities have often been disappointing.  Not so the Camden Area History Center.  It's only open three days a week but it's an absolutely first rate operation in every way.

    The "Camden area", which includes nearby Rockport and Lincolnville, has a long history going back to the days of Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame who was an early visitor.  Anything you could possibly want to know about what happened around here in the past 400 years you will find in the History Center. The collections are comprehensive and beautifully organized and the staff is knowledgeable and helpful.  It's the kind of place that makes history buffs like Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. hope for lots of rainy days during their stay in Camden. 

     It was a busy day in the harbor again yesterday with conditions ideal for sailing.  The magnificent yacht "Too Elusive" which docks right below their apartment returned from a cruise late yesterday afternoon while Uncle Jack was enjoying a libation on the deck so he made a short video of the docking process.  You can see it by clicking on the YouTube link below the pictures.

     They are signed up for another windjammer cruise this morning so weather permitting he will have pictures of that for tomorrow's blog. The schooner's name is the Lazy Jack and what could be more appropriate than that? 

     Inspired by John McPhee's trek through the Maine wilderness Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J.  hit the trail again this morning.  It took an hour to climb Mount Battie by the so-called "Nature Trail"---one of several available to hikers thanks to to the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 30's---but only a half-hour to return to the bottom. As aerobic exercise goes it surely beats walking on a treadmill at the Y.

     On the way back down the mountain they met a couple coming up who were from Corry, Pennsylvania, a small town in the woods north of Pittsburgh.  They said they usually vacation on the Outer Banks but decided to come to Maine this summer.  Wonder where they got that idea.

     The harbor continues to fill up with boats of all kinds.  At times it is like watching the bumper cars at the carnival as the yachts maneuver for places to tie up. Considering that the season doesn't really get underway for another couple of weeks it should get pretty exciting out there by mid-July.

     Saturday fulfilled the weatherman's promise of a winner and all the day's scheduled cultural events came off without a hitch.  The Peyton Place parade of vintage cars was short enough not to create havoc on route 1, the Farmers' Market was filled with vendors and crowded with buyers, and the clearance sale at Down East magazine was even better than expected.

    Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. bought a bunch of books that had been marked down from over $20 to the $1 to $3 range and he has spent most of his waking hours since then reading one of them.  "The Survival of the Bark Canoe" does not sound like much of a page-turner but when you know that it was written by John McPhee you know it will be a treat.

     The harbor is filling up rapidly with new boats now that  warmer weather has arrived.  One very large windjammer tied up in the inner harbor yesterday which will necessitate a walk over to examine it today before it sets sail again.  It's another glorious day in Camden so walking around the harbor will hardly be a chore.

    Have a lovely Sunday wherever you are.

     Uncle Jack is pleased to report that he now has wireless broadband service in his Camden apartment after two weeks of less-than-patient waiting for the Time-Warner company to get off the dime.  The process of hooking up was not pretty but it was effective in the end.  A cable guy arrived at 8:30 a.m. as promised and spent most of the next three hours running up and down the stairs as he tried without success to find the correct combination of connections to make the broadband modem work.  He was joined at 11:30 by his supervisor who spent another hour doing essentially the same thing after which he concluded the problem was somewhere outside of his purview.  He promised that the glitch would be corrected that afternoon and he was as good as his word.  At 6 p.m. Uncle Jack tried once more to connect to the internet and voila!  There it was.

    Now he can surf to his heart's content from the comfort of his living room, distracted only by the 194 channels of TV fare which came with his TV-broadband package.  Will it be 194 channels with nothing to watch?  Stay tuned.

    Friday was another in a series of perfect days mid-coast Maine has been enjoying.  After the cable guys departed we visited the pretty harbor in Rockport, Camden's next door neighbor.  For many years Rockport was part of Camden and there doesn't seem to be any good reason why it shouldn't be today but now it has its own fire department, police department, government, etc. etc. just like Camden.  Any similarity between them and Nags Head-KDH is purely coincidental. Pictures below.

    Today will be fun-packed for sure.  Camden is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the filming of the scandalous movie "Peyton Place" here with a parade down Route 1 (imagine the traffic jam that will ensue from that on a Saturday morning!) at 10 a.m. replete with vintage cars that were used in the movie and a few surviving members of the cast propped up in them. Pictures tomorrow.

     Saturday morning is also Farmers' Market time in Camden where all kinds of locally produced goodies are available at reasonable prices, e.g. free-range organic chickens, home-made cheese and sausages, artisan breads, and fruits and vegetables in season (which hasn't arrived yet).

    Camden is the home of "Down East" magazine, a slick and very successful monthly paean of praise to the beauty of Maine.  This afternoon they are throwing their annual "clean out the warehouse" sale on books and other stuff from their gift shop.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. will be there for sure.

     Uncle Jack is happy to report that he and Mrs. U.J. are safely ensconced in their new home away from home on the harbor in Camden, Maine.  He will have to wait two weeks to get a broadband connection in their apartment but lucky for him the Camden Public Library nearby offers free wireless broadband, hence this abbreviated blog entry.

     He woke up at 4:30 this morning which was a good thing because that's when the sunrise begins up here.  He can't promise a sunrise every morning but today's was pretty enough to encourage him to get up really early once in a while.

    Camden is beginning to awaken from a long, cold winter.  The harbor is filling up with boats of all kinds from the magnificent yacht moored beneath their apartment to the little "peapod" rowboats that skitter around among the biggies. 

     While shopping in Hannaford's supermarket this morning Uncle Jack encountered a lady wearing an Outer Banks T-shirt.  She was just back in Camden after two weeks in her timeshare at Seascape in Kitty Hawk. Small world.

     He looks forward to blogging from Camden because there is so much going on right outside his window at all times.  Look for another entry in a few days and keep him posted on that tropical storm.  He won't have TV for a couple of weeks either.