“If you can visit only one island in your lifetime, it should be Monhegan.”
That’s according to our downstairs neighbor in The Seagull annex at the Trailing Yew. He is from Tennessee and says he is here because that’s what his Maine guidebook said. He couldn’t remember the name of the guide.
I’d like to think it was one of mine. This is a special place for me and for thousands of others who keep returning.
I’d booked into the Trailing Yew this time because I thought I was coming alone and wanted to stay an extra day or two and sketch. The “Yew” caters to singles with its rates, $100 with a full breakfast, and family-style meals that draw a predictably interesting group – people who don’t mind shared baths and guest rooms lit with oil lamps (there are lights in the bathrooms and common rooms).
By happy chance my friend Felicia called out of the blue and agreed to come along, despite still-vivid memories of her post-hurricane ferry ride back from this island when we celebrated my 50th birthday here with our husbands.
This time too bad weather was forecast for the one night I had booked but I couldn’t raise anyone at The Yew when I tried to change it. Felicia was game and luckily it had stopped raining by the time we boarded the 60-foot Hardy Boat III at Shaw’s Wharf in New Harbor. Capt. Al Crocetti laughed when he read my advice in the guide about avoiding the (theoretically) 50-minute ferry ride is “no fun if it’s rough”. It a roller coaster ride but the crew passed out ginger candies and we didn’t see anyone get sick.
Per usual the trucks were lined up at the dock & we piled our bags onto “Monhegan Trucking” and Bill Boynton stepped out of the Lupine Gallery and said “Hi Chris” as though I had just been there last week instead of two years ago. Does he check out every ferry? I’d forgotten what a fabulous gallery it is and what a great art supply store. We bought sketching pens.
The sun was shining and we headed up Horn Hill to Burnt Head to make the most of this magical evening that was supposed to be all rain. Burnt Head is a steep thousand-plus foot cliff high above the open ocean and peering over the edge now,
I can’t imagine why I never worried about my three unruly little sons during the weeks our family used to spend in a very nearby cottage. At any rate it is a glorious spot and we settled down to talk and paint for hours.
A perfect sunset over Manana and we shared it, along with our mussels and fries, with two Bath area men whose sailboat moored offshore. Back at the Yew we lit our oil lamps.
Way too short a visit! Good breakfast and table conversation and off on a walk but the heavens let loose half way to Lobster Cove and we were drenched thru and settled for prowling the village. Checked the notices on the (recently re-shingled) Rope Shed, the island info kiosk. Also hiked up Lighthouse Hill to the museum, which has a new admissions shed/gift shop.
The News: Lisa Brackett now owns not just the Fish Market but the store too and handles many of the cottage rentals.
John Murdock at Shining Sails , who manages some three dozen rentals , tells us thatthere are c.130 cottages all toll on the island, 8 or 9 lobsterman and the population is c.150.Shining Sails rooms remain the island’s most comfortable and best value for a couple, most with kitchen facilities and balconies ($150-230 in season).
The Island Inn has new owners who are well liked, local and hands-on ,but prices are higher than ever. ($345 for simple “ocean view” rooms with bath, $435 for a suite). Still it doesn’t cost anything to sit in a rocker on the inn’s fabulous front porch.
Lunch in the Island Inn’s handsome dining room, hung with Don Stone paintings of waves and rocks, couldn’t have been more pleasant, incredibly light mini-crab cakes on a bed of mixed greens and beers from The Barnacle, the ferry-side chop owned by the Inn.
Way too short a stay! Raced up to the lighthouse and museum to check out changes and off we went across a calmer bay than yesterday, on up to Damariscotta and the Millpond Inn.
Maine Meanderings 