Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday September 9-11, 2025 Exploring Rockland
Rockland is a fantastic little town. Town development was based on rock - hence the name. Granite and limestone quarries nearby provided building materials for the growing big cities of Boston and New York. At one time 25 limestone quarries fed 125 kilns along the waterfront converting the limestone to lime to be used in cement. Of course, there was also shipbuilding to support that trade, as well as the fishing fleets. Great museums, art galleries, coffee shops, bakery, donut shop, two breweries, restaurants, etc. By Maine standards it's a bigger town with a population of about 7000. Main Street is vibrant and lined with older buildings. Nice to see most every storefront was occupied.
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| Some of the buildings lining Main Street |
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| King tides this week (12') due to full moon create dry land around the dingy dock |
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| Rockland has a huge harbor - just a portion of the moorings are shown here |
Rockland is home to The Farnsworth Art Museum, the Sail, Power and Steam Museum, the Maine Lighthouse Museum, Rockland Historical Museum, Project Puffin Visitor Center, Coastal Children's Museum, Museum of Maritime Pets and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Needless to say - plenty to keep us occupied. Plus there's the Strand Theatre - an art deco theatre showing current movies but also live recorded plays, operas and documentaries. We went to see the recorded live performance of Noel Coward's play "Present Laughter" which was recorded in London. Pretty interesting experience - almost as good as being at the live performance. Penobscot Bay is home to multiple Windjammer boats with several based here, although more are located a few miles up the road in Camden.
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Andrew Wyeth's "The Blue Door" was the last painting he did at the Olson's Farm
after Christina and Alvaro's deaths |
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N.C. Wyeth produced many illustrative works for novels such as
Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe |
Started with a visit to the Farnsworth Museum. It has an extensive collection of Wyeth artwork due to the family ties to the area. They have owned a summer place nearby for generations. The collection contains numerous paintings from N.C Wyeth (the father), Andrew (his son) and then Jamie (Andrew's son). Very interesting to see the progression of each artists work as well as comparisons between them. Got to meet Capt. Jim Sharp who now runs the Sail, Power and Steam Museum. At 92 years old he's still full of energy and stories. He was an early pioneer in establishing the current Windjammer sailing cruises which are now so popular in the area.
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| The Sail, Power and Steam Museum sits on part of the old Snow Family Shipyards |
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Every room loaded with interesting items. Here's an old International Harvester Truck.
Note its use of old wagon wheels |
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| The boatbuilders workshop. Again, a bit of everything |
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From the Lighthouse Museum. A second level Fresnel lens.
This one had a unique outer second set of lenses that rotated |
Met a fun couple from Iowa while we were all looking at the "For Sale" postings in the front window of a realtor shop. Wound up having them over for drinks on the flybridge as the sun set. Following day we met up with neighbors from Richmond Hill who have a house a few miles north of here. They kindly took us on a tour up to Camden with lunch at a wonderful waterfront restaurant. Tried my first crab roll. Not like our Chesapeake Bay crab but a nice alternative to a lobster roll.
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Our new friends from Iowa - Tim and Bev. Can't believe we missed
taking pictures with Matt and Eileen while at lunch |
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| American Independance woke us up as she docked at 10 PM |
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The bigger American Glory ship docking just as American Independance left the dock.
We're not the only ones catching lobster buoys.
He blew out 6-8 of them when using the bow thruster. |
There is a farmers' market oddly enough on Thursday morning right beside the marina. Probably the best one we've seen in a while. Lots of local produce vendors and much of it organic at pretty reasonable prices. So the smaller cruise ships from the America Lines stop here, we've run across them in all sorts of cities up and down the east coast. Oddly, people got off the boat and into buses that took them elsewhere. Unfortunate as there is so much being offered here. Overall, for us it was a great town for an extended visit.
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| Great produce at the farmer's market. |
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| Looks like fall is in the air! |
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