I thought the poster said 10:30 but as I pulled into the Public Dock parking lot in Rockland. As I grabbed my camera gear I past an old pickup with a man working on a line. I would re confirm the time. He glanced up as I approached him and asked, “What’s up?” “I’m here to watch you do an eye splice around that thimble.” “Don’t watch too closely.” “What time does the “Parade of Sail” happen for the Friendship Sloops?” “You have to go over to their tent and ask.” “Where is the parade going to happen?” “You have to go over to their tent and ask.” By this time both of us were laughing. “Well, I think I’ll go over to their tent and ask. Bye”
I was an hour off – 11:30. But the entire Friendship Sloop fleet was in and it looked like old home week: the fifteen boats with their crews and families gathered and talked then broke up and formed another group. Kids were hard at task filling water balloons at the dock hoses and putting them into buckets. While some kids weren’t looking, other kids would steal balloons out each others buckets. I was not alone with my camera. Photographers were underfoot shooting this eye candy of beautifully handcrafted boats. And I finally learned where the name “Friendship” came from after seeing my first one thirty-two years ago. The slow, heavy boats were the “trucks” of the sea for lobstering before the gas engine. They were built in the town of Friendship, Maine.
I connected with the captain of the Mary M. and we chatted about his boat and others in the regatta. He said to come back sometime and perhaps we could go out.
Slowly the fleet left dockside to do their “Parade of Sail out by the breakwater so I moved back to my car. As I entered the parking lot I heard a VHF marine radio on so I thought I would check it out at the dock. The skipper of a small launch call “Two Toots” had left it on so I listened to the harbor business. As I returned to the parking lot here was the same guy looking at the splicing jobs that he had just finished so I started talking to him. The conversation lazied along until his cell phone rang. He said, “Okay, I’ll be there.” Turning to me he asked, “Wanna go on a boat ride?” “Sure.” All the time I’m jumping up and down inside screaming, “YES, YES, YES!!” “Here take this line down to the launch while I go take a pee.” Thus began an hour encounter with “George, the harbor taxi guy.”
Freeland basically doesn’t have a pleasure craft marina so a couple of a hundred boats are on permanent mooring buoys scattered through out the large protected harbor. Dinghy docks are everywhere but a lot of times it’s easier to just give George a ring on his cell phone. First we delivered one couple to their boat and then got another call from someone at his dock so we headed back. He said I could get off or go out again. I said I would go another round. “You sure it’s all right?” In his dry New England humor he said, “I just said you could come out.”
As we dropped off the man at his boat I could see the sloop fleet in the middle of a downwind run for the leeward buoy on the race course. George was telling me about all the jobs that he had held here in the harbor of which one was sailing instructor so he was trying to second guess the leaders strategies. We headed over to the fleet and for the next thirty minutes we talked and he told me the history of the area and the landmarks and the schooners out in the harbor. I loved hearing he talk about the good times and the bad. When the racing fleet came by, we stopped talking as I was firing away with my camera. What pure delight it was to be on out on the water again in an open launch with a man my age just shooting the breeze!! I’m one lucky guy!!
George’s cell phone brought us back to the working world. Then another call. The questions were always the same: Where are you and how many?
He said we had to go back into his dock to pick up the first group then he would head over to get the second group. As we approached his dock he asked if I had my papers. “No, just experience.” “Have you had a drug test?” “No, but I’m clean.” “I’ve got to let you off then because I’ll be carrying my capacity of passengers and you aren’t covered to be a crew.” “Thanks, George. I’ve loved spending time with you. Here’s some gas money.” “If you don’t have something to do, come back sometime.” Bye, George... and thanks for the word: “Always leave two lobster pot buoys between you and the shore and you’ll never go aground.”
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