June 18, Friday – Celtic

The morning was spent juggling around the campground. Since I entered the state park on Monday without a reservation, I had to take a “First come, first serve; Drop in; Non Reserve-able” site. However my house batteries seemed to not be holding a charge so I moved to a hookup site so I could recharge my two deep cycle Group 27 batteries. Breaking camp and moving is a breeze and I don’t mind at all transferring from one site to another. Which I did.
In the afternoon I wandered up coast to Belfast to take in their Celtic Festival but first I stopped at a VW place on the highway and got JV (Jetta Volkswagen) a new (used) wheel cover to replace the one I saw leaving the highway in New Mexico those four months ago. Now JV has shoes on all her feet. She looked so unbalanced with that missing wheel cover.
Belfast is a nice town. I like the layout. On my way to the event grounds I had to go by the public docks and there sat the three similar sloops that I had seen a couple of days before when I was on my way to the bridge towers. Someone was working on deck so I came down to the docks and watched. Finally I said in my best Maine imitation, “So what’s the story with the three peas in a pod?” “These have three different owners that had similar boats so they decided to get them all restored at the same time. They were old college buddies and when they’re all done one will go to Finland, another to Rhode Island and the last one to Michigan. They’re Herreshoff Buzzard Bay 30’s.” And from there the conversation flowed. He was a young rigger/sail maker from Boothbay. There had been faulty poured bronze fittings on the boats so he was changing them out. The turnbuckle pins on the shrouds, for one. He showed me a becket block that failed. Most of the bronze use to come from Sweden or Denmark but now it comes from India and is of very low quality. The lad had worked on the Lady Washington and decided to come to Maine because this is where the wooden boats are. He was working and was happy. I just love hanging out and listening and talking and the decade on schooner Rejoice gives me the confidence to go with the waterfront crowd.
The Celtic Festival was just getting into first gear for the weekend. Last year they had around 5,000 folks for the weekend gathering but right now the number was around 100. I decide to check out the local fare and ordered a “Lobsta” roll for the local Rotary Club food trailer. Good.
The Celtic Band on the hill was still going through the sound checks and played a few bars as I explored the area. Down below the hill was a croquet court so I thought I would check it on. However right next to the court was a tent with a scattering of folks listen intently to a guy in kilts pointing at a slide show screen. I grabbed a sit in the back to see what was going on because I’m drawn to PowerPoint presentations like some folks are drawn to yard sales. I couldn’t notice that several people in the audience had pads of paper and were writing down what the man was talking about. I stayed. I learned. Much of Maine was settled by the Scot-Irish. (Think potato famine and Maine Potatoes – second to Idaho’s.) The kilted man was talking about different Maine coast families and was both tracing their heritage back to the mother country but was also giving us an excellent history lesson of Scotland, Ireland and England. His photos were of the countryside and town sites that produced the immigrants to this country. And the heroes of the conflicts between Scotland and England. He focused on such families as the Armstrongs. Notes were being taken by the audience, which made me smile. He pointed out that so many people in the Belfast area could trace their roots back that it was a shame that this was only the second year for the festival. Their pride should have been celebrated for centuries.