Our Main Maine Event

Just like last year, we spent a week off the coast of Bremen, Maine at the Audubon Hog Island family camp.  And like last year, we loved it.  This year, though, we had a guest with us--Goo came along.  And it was a magical week.

We traveled up to Maine, making a few stops along the way.  We ate lunch in the pouring rain at the Lobster Shack at Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth--delicious lobster rolls and whole clams and fried fish and whoopie pies and Grape Nut pudding.  We didn't spend anytime on the beach or climbing the rocks, but I did get to sniff the lovely beach roses.

We also stopped at the Kittery Trading Post, a bit like a local Cabela's, where we got some souvenirs and some last-minute camping supplies.

Then we made it to the boat and our weeklong home-away-from-home.  Many of the staff were returnees from last year, as were many of the campers; I think that made it doubly special.  And much of the week was familiar.  We even played the same four or five getting-to-know-you-games that first night--Stuffed Animal name toss, Human Knot, Marshmallow River Cross, and Captain's Coming, a kind of Simon Says.  At one point, the kiddos were standing together and the next move was a waltz; they looked at each other and headed in separate directions!

Our Loft:  Our room was in the attic of a 19th-century chandlery, a huge loft with twin beds, a private bathroom, and a view with a breeze.  We were right in the center of camp above where the boat docked (half of the building stood over the rocks of the shore), not far away like last year.  I liked the location and the room.  I spent more time sitting in the Adirondack chairs looking at the water and sitting in the hummingbird garden watching the three flitting birds.  The kids and I spent much of the last day trying to catch a picture--at one point we were staring at one feeder only to discover that the birds were on the feeder behind us!

That's the chandlery aka Fish House; our room is in the attic.

Shakedown Cruise:  On our first full day, we took a boat cruise around the island.  This is a slow, lovely ride with lots of birds.  We saw gulls, cormorants, guillemots, a juvie bald eagle and then a beautiful mature one sitting in a spruce.  I was the one who spotted him, from his white head against the green.  Amazing, iconic.  We also had a long talk about whether a bird was a Greater or Lesser Yellow Legs.  Apparently, if you can imagine pushing its beak out the back of its head and it is long enough to emerge, it is a Greater; this one was.  We also saw a harbor seal or two, following us around!  I've always loved boat rides, even slow ones like this.  Makes me want to get my boating license and buy a boat.

Can you see the eagle?? 

Optionals:  Sprinkled throughout the week were various optional classes from which to choose.  Many were the same as last year which made deciding easier.  And because the kids are well-behaved, the instructors didn't mind if they attended alone.

• Ponding:  Bud enjoyed mucking around with nets.
• Geocaching:  Goo enjoyed the GPS "treasure hunt" so much that he took it twice.
• Nature Journaling:  I really enjoyed the drawing lesson, complete with detailed bird wing and feather discussion.
• Nature Photography:  Mama and Sis liked practicing their photography.  All the photos here are mine, but theirs are much better.
• Joy of Birding and Citizen Science:  Birding was my favorite subject at camp, still being quite a novice, and so I enjoyed both the intro Joy of Birding (which I took last year, too) with its discussions of habitat and food source and behavior (Mama took it with me) and, later in the week, the discussion of digital birding platforms like eBird and Project FeederWatch plus a practice walk with some new skills for listening, watching, and counting.  

This was a lesson in food source and beak shape.

Evening "Campfire":  We gathered every evening in the large Fish House for evening guest lecturers and music.  Oh, I loved the singalongs with the camp staff band--Colleen played guitar, Russell on banjo, volunteer John on guitar, and camp director Ron on violin/fiddle.  We all sang along to songs such as "Eider and Osprey," "Island Lullaby," "Rattlin' Bog," "This Land is Your Land."  A new counselor Rosie, the younger sister of ornithologist Anna (whose new husband Ryan was the new camp photographer), introduced us to "The Sun is a Magic Fellow" and "At the Roseville Fair."  And a few times, a very musical family joined them, singing "I'll Fly Away" and "Charlie of the MTA" and "Isle au Haut."  One night, a guest musician, Jud Caswell delighted us with his "backyard songs" about "Blackberry Time," "Getting Poor Slow," and other touching ballads; he'd performed last year, too.  I really enjoyed seeing how much Goo loved the music and even sang along--he's a clear tenor and harmonizes really well.

Meals:  Oh, the food.  It's such a treat to have a chef at camp (not that canned Sysco food I recall from my Girl Scout days), especially one devoted to local, sustainable, and delicious fare.  Our favorites included

• Salad dressings such as strawberry, orange mint, spring onion, and southwest buttermilk, which were delicious on spring greens
• desserts: chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, flourless chocolate cake, strawberry shortcake, ginger ice cream with chocolate ganache and cranberry sauce, and my favorite these moist chocolate cupcakes with delicious buttercream frosting.  And of course, the last night's cream puffins!! (Handmade, with little shortbread puffin heads!)
• Lobster night:  Okay, I don't like lobster, but Mama, Bud, and Goo relished in the lobsters and the haddock chowder.  I had the delicious pizza.  Sis, who doesn't eat anything with tomatoes, had a little grilled steak.
• Other dinners included roast chicken, spaghetti with either pesto or Bolognese, hamburgers.
• Breakfasts always had a main dish--broccoli and pepper frittata, pancakes, scrambled eggs--plus a buffet with oatmeal and yogurt with toppings.  And lots of coffee.
• Lunch was sometimes served outside (which was great until the awful black flies hatched in numbers on the first sunny day!  Bud and I attracted them--I looked down more than once to a dozen flies on my socks and bet I had fifty bites--my ankles swelled beyond recognition.)  We had grilled cheeses with tomato soup, quesadillas with salsas and toppings, plus two days of sandwiches for hikes and cruises.  

Hiking Day:  I sat out hiking day, and Mama with me.  The kids went with Goo on the long hike around the whole island and had a great time.  Mama and I sat in the Fish House and talked and drew and ate our sandwiches.  A little squirrel, one of the chatty ones that lives in the middle of camp, came in and out of a small crevice in the closed screen doors.  I drew the eagle and the seal, the hummingbirds and the beach rose, based on a nature drawing book that the resident artist had used in the Nature Journaling optional.  It was restorative to sit around camp together alone.

Puffin Cruise:  It was a bit foggy on puffin day and, when we got to the island, we didn't see any for awhile.  Then there they were--four little rubber duck-like puffins with their colorful beaks were floating in the water.  They hung around for a long time and we all got some great pictures.   We also saw both Harbor and Grey Seals, the grey being larger with longer snouts and more unusual in the upper parts of Muscongus Bay.  And then we went to Harbor Island for hikes and lunch.  The kids hiked around with Goo while Mama and I hung near the beach, sniffing roses, watching the fog roll in and out, and building rock cairns that were eventually inundated.  It was a glorious day.

"At Home" Day:  On the last full day of camp, we all hiked out to a cove and explored the area.  The kids and Goo did some seining with nets, finding all manner of intertidal critters, while I scrambled across some rocks to take in the view.  I am still awed by the coast, with its huge tidal differences (about 12'), boulders and rocks, and evergreens.  It's just so beautiful and unlike any coastal landscape I have known before--certainly not the Gulf Coast!  We had our periwinkle roast again--the boiling of small snails in seawater--and Bud again almost ate his weight in the tiny tidbits.  We took a few more optionals and then celebrated camp with our Lobster (or pizza) dinner and our "Treasures of Hog Island" exhibition and show.  Another week of camp was over, our last time at family camp.  Sure, we can go to Hog Island again, for teen camp or Raptor Rapture, but not together as a family, not with this staff for these activities. Very bittersweet.  I will treasure the memories and our time together.

(For my recollections of Family Camp 2017, see here.)