Camden Harbor Inn

We splurged and stayed at the elegant Camden Inn on the hill, an old local style of architecture which had been bought recently by 2 Dutch guys who added their own style…we had appetizers of pemaquid mussels, and warm beet salad and gnocchi with local mushrooms, and the warm chocolate cake for dessert, all delicious.

I wanted the local black trumpets that a local guy had brought in. He found them in the woods in Lincolnville, which he sold to the hotel for $10/lb. It took a few hours to clean and cut them to make them proper for the hotel chef.

He was also a lobster man, grew up “on boats since before he could walk”.  He said he loves his life and the fact that he can do what he does and make a living. He said lobster season is from May thru Nov and when the water gets too cold the lobsters go deeper where the water stays warmer.

Camden Harbor Inn

Tom, the bartender had just moved back to Camden with his family, was a photographer also. During the day he and his wife have a studio shooting people portraits.

The Maitre’d was a wonderful older woman from Bern, Switzerland and had followed a man out to Camden from San Francisco but when she got there, he was already with another woman….! So she left for awhile but came back again, and luckily he was long gone. Such is life. But they say they all love it here…

Later on we met a couple sitting on the front porch of the inn, a wealthy couple from Texas with a house and Beneteau Sailboat in Coronado, San Diego…he tried to warn us to “stay in the harbor”, then I told him I’d paddled an outrigger canoe across to Catalina in 5 hrs and raced the Molokai Channel, and he didn’t say anything more….

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Windjammer in Camden Harbor, Maine

During that weekend over 30 Windjammer ships came into the harbor. I met a local photographer guy who was trying to shoot for calendars, he still worked as a mechanic, but worked as a “pro” on the side, and said he would love to quit his “Day job”. He owned a new Nikon D300 and he loved it. He suggested getting the extra battery pack when you buy one.  He also suggested using the geo-caching.com website when traveling. I’ve gotta check that out, not for the treasure aspect, just for finding the gps locations of cool local areas of interest to photograph. He also talked about the fact that all of the locals were worried about the price of oil to heat their houses this winter, at $4.50/gal it was going to be an expensive winter.

The Windjammers are the original sailing ships of 100 years ago refurbished and most are over 120 feet long and carried cargo all over the world…More windjammer facts

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