Day Three: Lobsters, Condoms, and More Strange Phenomena

August 10^th, 2016

Paul was all trash talk last night at the Longhorn. There were card games to be played, rematches to win, and scores to settle. But when we got back to our hotel with our bellies full, he fell into bed without ever looking at a deck of cards, sleep hard upon him.  I suspect everyone else did the same thing.  I sat up writing until close to midnight without ever hearing a peep from anyone.

We left the hotel around 7:30 this morning.  Our first adventure of the day was at the Oceanarium of Bar Harbor, Maine where we learned all about Lobster Love.  Did you know that there are condoms involved?  True. Story.  (Ok, so I was informed later, on the bus, the tour guide had said “condos” but I like my version better.  And I still think that might be what he said.)

Our first tour guide was an old man with looked as if he had spent his life on the high seas.   His worn blue jeans were held up with red suspenders, his wiry frame lean, his face wrinkled and weathered. His stage was a lobster boat that had been brought inside and he showed us traps, buoys, bait bags, and sundry other tools of the trade.

After learning that it takes five to seven years for a lobster to be large enough to make it to the dinner table legally, I, for one, will show more appreciation for their sacrifice.  I learned a lot of things at the lobster hatchery.  Each lobster sheds its shell many, many times.  Then he or she eats it.  During the days following the shedding the lobster is soft and easily crushed.  No one will eat them in this gelatinous state so they are returned to the water if they are caught. They are also thrown back if they’re too small.  If they are mothers they are returned as well.  The largest lobster our tour guide had heard of weighed in at over 40 lbs.  Consider that the crustacean on your dinner plate weighs in at about 2 or 3 lbs, after seven years of growth.  How old must the really large ones be?!  I'm happy to report I no longer need to feel sorry for the poor lobsters headed for the boiling pot.  There was a study done to see how much they suffer.  It turns out they are virtually brainless, therefore there is no pain.  Of course this is all according to the study.  No one has actually asked the lobsters.

So where do the condoms enter the picture, you wonder?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  At the hatchery the mother lobsters have ten to twenty thousand, or maybe even one-hundred thousand, eggs attached to their undersides, after a year of carrying them INSIDE.  The pin-head size babies finally emerge and proceed to grow and shed, grow and shed. Unfortunately, when they become mobile they tend to eat their siblings.  By placing them in condom shaped tubes they are protected from each other’s penchant for cannibalism.  When they are still so tiny they are barely visiable they are released into the ocean to fend for themselves.  Surrounded by predators on every side many of them do not survive more than a few seconds.  And some grow to over 40 lbs. So think about all of that the next time you dunk a forkful of succulent, flakey, white meat into a dish of melted butter.

In another room, another tour guide, this time the female version of the first one, told us more incredible tales, this time about sea cucumbers, star fish, and other bizarre creatures of the sea.  Moving at 

the staggering rate of a foot or so an hour, the cucumber, looking for all the world like a, well, a cucumber, has the uncanny ability to disengage and expel its stomach and intestines when threatened by a predator.  This shocking maneuver will, hopefully, distract whatever is in pursuit by providing it with an appetizer while allowing the cucumber time to escape.  It then re-grows another stomach and/or intestines for use in the future.

Before leaving the gift shop I bought a hand woven bracelet with a note that said, “Prayerfully made by the old man in the museum.”  It was the note that sold me.

Our next stop was Bar Harbor.  It’s a beautiful setting albeit totally commercialized.  Playing tourist is fun though, for awhile.  And we did it well.  Paul enjoyed his first lobster roll and I slurped down the best cup of clam chowder I’ve ever eaten.  We found a few more things on our scavenger hunt list and then it was back on the bus for a foray up Cadillac Mountain.

 A steady rain and thick fog dissuaded any of us from actually disembarking at the top of the mountain but at least we can say we were there. Our next attempt to see beautiful scenery was also less than successful. 

Acadia National Park is billed as “Maine’s most famous spot,” but what the park planners failed to do was ensure the arched stone bridge leading into the park was high enough for tour buses to actually get there.  We were an inch too tall.  As in you can’t be just “a little pregnant” or just “mostly dead,” The Princess Bride notwithstanding, being just a little too tall is still too tall. Nonetheless there was

plenty of beauty to be enjoyed during our climb up several flights of rock stairs to the park information center. 

We got slightly lost in searching for another route in, which was entertaining.  For everyone except the driver. Turning around with a full-size motor coach involves more maneuvering than doing a quick u-turn with a car.  The mere inches that separated us from curbs, guard rails, motorists, and signs would give me heart palpitations.  Dave and JR handle it with the calmness of a couple of . . . cucumbers.  They have done this more than a few times, I suspect.

Our journey to the hotel was a slow, tedious affair with traffic stretched out in front of us as far as the eye could see.  It reminded me of back home in Berlin on the Charm Days/Antique Festival weekend.  At least on the bus there are plenty of people to talk to.  I felt sorry for the driver again, though.  We had just pulled in when a white van with Ohio plates parked nearby, an Amish man clearly visible in the passenger’s seat.  They unloaded a bunch more of the same and a discussion ensued among us as to where their origin might be as indicated by the women’s various styles of headgear.  It seems they hailed from Fredericksburg, about 5 miles from my hometown.  How could we narrow it down that closely from seeing what they were wearing?  Well, we couldn’t.  We simply asked them where they were from.

We ate supper at The Governor’s. It was a small family-style restaurant whose staff not only didn’t suggest we try another restaurant, they handled the sudden appearance of almost forty people with calm efficiency.  We were all seated at various tables in short order. Service was good and served with a smile. Paul ordered a piece of apple pie in a box which he kept carefully concealed.  (Scavenger Hunt)  The waitress took it in stride; if she thought we all belonged in an insane asylum she hid it well.

My team suffered another appalling loss at the card tables before we turned in for the night.  That’s okay.  There are more nights ahead.  Victory awaits.