Saturday 12th October
Raining this morning but not that bad and we had 1.5 hours drive ahead of us so not an issue. Today we are heading for Portland, Maine still on the coast in amongst the many islands off the Maine coastline. We had read about some things to do in Portland some months ago, one of those things was to go on a lobster catching boat tour. When we booked online (2 days ago) for every tour today there was only one place left on the boat, so we decided to book Tania on and Graeme went onto a wait list. We had been ringing to check (including this morning) to see if any cancellations had come through, but so far no luck! So with only a few hours left before the tour was due to leave, Graeme, with Kindle in hand, was expecting to sit in a Cafe and read while Tania was out hunting and gathering lobster.
We arrived in town at 10.45am, had a coffee and walked the cobbled streets of the old port area of Portland. With fingers crossed we checked with the Lucky Catch Cruise office on the dock and was told Graeme had been added to the tour !! Great news !!!
Experiencing light rain for a short time and with a couple of hours to kill, we managed to find a bakery and sat for awhile eating gluten free pizza and cakes. The weather eventually cleared so we headed out for other delicacy for which Portland is famous... I am sure you all guessed the potato donut!
Along with desperate locals and tourists we stood in line for 18 minutes to enjoy a Maine Apple and a Toasted Coconut donut ! They were actually quite nice, light and not oily at all !
Time for our lobster catch tour along with Captain Tom, 2 crew members and 20 other tour members. This was the highlight of our visit to Portland ! We pulled up 4 sets of traps, removing lobster and other assorted marine life and rebaiting the traps with dead herrings and dropping them back into the harbour. We caught about 10 lobsters.... threw back 3.... obviously Captain Tom was not making money on this trip from the catch! We then found out he had a licence for 800 traps in the harbour, a licence he could only sell to those on a waiting list.
This was a great informative and hands on afternoon, with the option at the end of purchasing the lobster caught (at boat prices), taking it to a restaurant on the dock where they cook it up for you and add sides. So we purchased a lobster each and headed off to enjoy our catch, along with a young English couple who were also on the tour.
So, bakery, donut, lobster dinner ...we pigged out in Portland!
Approaching 7.00 pm and we still had a 25 minute drive to our accommodation at Old Orchard Beach, arriving to check in after sundown. Old Orchard Beach is very much a seaside summer resort town with side shows, rides and pier...but this weekend they were all shutting down and packing up as the season was over. This includes most of the accommodation in town, they just close for six months of the year...hard to comprehend that weather gets that cold here. When we woke in the morning we found the motel was right on the beach front with waves large enough to satisfy the line up of surfers braving the cool conditions.
PS We forgot to mention the sweets shop was open in Old Orchard Beach..so finished the night with some treats each! What a day! Oink,oink!