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[Innkeeper]

Well, we had a great time up at Grand Manan. It was there as it was elsewhere on the East Coast of North America, the first beautiful week of the summer. We arrived late Monday afternoon after missing the ferry we were shooting for, and having to wait two hours for the next one. Our inn (The Compass Rose) did not serve dinner on Monday night, so after recovering in our room, during which time we killed at bottle of Terre Rouge Vin Gris d’Amador; we went to the only place on the island you could call a “gin mill” for dinner. Bev had a mixed seafood dish with ice tea, and I had a hot lobstah sandwich washed down with a couple of glasses of Jackson Triggs (Canada’s answer to Gallo Bros.) Chardonnay. The sandwich was creamy enough to kill the oak.

The next day, our anniversary, we started out with a hearty breakfast at the inn, and made several customary stops around the island. We picked up two lobstah rolls to go for lunch. We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the Anchorage Provincial Park at a table facing the ocean with a fresh water lake at our backs. After a few more scenic and commercial stops, we arrived back at The Compass Rose for dinner. Bev had Bombay Chicken and I had Coquilles St Jacques. We accompanied dinner with a bottle of Innskillen Riesling. All very, very nice. After dinner we drove up to the cliffs and watched the sun set on the coast of Maine. When we got back to the inn we popped the bottle of Glenora Sparkling Brut (the one with my name on it) and shared it with our hosts. Great anniversary!

On Wednesday after breakfast we visited a part of the island we had never been to before called Ox Head (no lie). It was beautiful, as was everything we visited due to the great weather. We grabbed two subs out of a questionable cooler for lunch, and enjoyed a picnic lunch at one of our favorite sites, South Head Beach, overlooking the beach in our traveling lawn chairs. That evening we went on a sunset kayak tour which was fantastic, including harbor seals, grey seals, porpoises, and a wide variety of birds. Knowing that we would get back to the inn after the dinning room closed, our host had arranged for us to pick up lobstah salads by knocking on the kitchen door. We were handed two dinner plates full of Romaine salad with vine ripe tomatoes, mushrooms, other veggies, and a heap of cold cooked lobstah meat. The salad dressing on the side was a tarragon, mayonnaise, mustard creation that resembled Béarnaise. She also provided hot bread and butter. We brought it all up to our room and enjoyed it with another cool bottle of T.R. Vin Gris.

This morning we had another great breakfast, said goodbye to our host, and made reservations for next year. The first night next year will be the anniversary so we have plenty of time to get back from Washington. We picked some very nice croissant ham and lettuce sandwiches to eat on the ferry, and returned to mainland North America. On the way home we stopped at the Union River Lobster Pot in Ellsworth for dinner. We both had lobstah pies. They were accompanied with a bottle of Chappellet Old Vine Cuvee. It was a little oaky but the creamy sauce in the pie overcame it. Nice wine otherwise.

During the trip I read “The Secret Life of Lobsters” by Trevor Corson. It is currently on the NYT non-fiction list, and is a highly recommended read. Too bad I couldn’t eat them suckers more than once a day for the last four days.