The Landing

Round Pond Harbor, like many Maine harbors, is becoming increasingly segregated by class. As well-off people from away are drawn to this quaint, beautiful little port, they bring their enormous SUVs and yachts along with them on vacation. There are some harbors where the juxtaposition of wealthy and working-class isn't so obvious, such as Camden where all of the boats are yachts. But somehow when you see an 80 ft sailboat with mechanized sails moored next to a smelly old "Novey boat" (a particular build of hull from Nova Scotia that is especially clumsy-looking, but very steady on the sea) the disparity in class is rather glaring.

This segregation is only reinforced by the two docks at the town landing. The docks are practically right beside eachother, separated only by two boat ramps. Yet to inspect them individually, you would expect them to be from hundreds of miles apart (one from Long Island and the other from Downeast Maine). These docks are markedly different in that one is utilized primarily by people from away and summer folks, while the other is used by the fishermen.

A good friend of mine refers to the summer people's dock as the "bourgeois dock" since it represents the upper class in the Harbor. This is where the yachties tie their skiffs used to motor or row to their towering, perfectly-polished and manicured yachts. At this float you see graceful, freshly varnished and painted wooden skiffs as well as Zodiacs (little inflatable rafts with a small outboard motor that are commonly used to get to and from shore from a pleasure boat). This float has a foot rail with little numbers that denote "parking spaces" where one can tie the painter of one's skiff. I assume that these parking spaces are rented for the summer, but I wouldn't know.

Just to the north of the bourgeois dock sits the dock belonging to the common-folk and locals. It isn't difficult to notice some differences. The fishermen's float is over-crowded and populated with little run-down skiffs used to ferry to and from lobster boats. Fishermen employ all sorts of gnarly craft to get from dock to mooring and back. These nobel vessels are often a display of a lobsterman's two most prominent characteristics: ingenuity and thriftiness. Lobstermen's skiffs are often rough fiberglass or aluminum with a small horsepower outboard or oars to power them. Boaters from the neighboring dock probably think of the fishermen's skiffs as eyesores. But, personally, I think they display character. You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his skiff.

One of my favorite local skiffs is a rectangular punt with an old garden hose stapled around the perimeter as a makeshift rubrail. The owner is known as one of the cheapest guys in the harbor, yet he isn't poor. My dad says it looks like he picked his punt up at the dump. Not unlikely. It's a wonder that the thing still floats. But sure enough it gets "Tuba" back and forth from his WWII Coast Guard boat and probably has done so for 50 years.

Some fishermen are even so fond of their skiff that they name it. A cute one is a little yellow skiff named "Spud" that accompanies the lobster boat "Potatoe." There are a few aluminum skiffs with endearing names scratched crudely on the transom including "Little 'N'."

Cap's skiff is appropriately practical and modest, like the captain himself. It is a 12 foot flat-

bottomed skiff built of plywood with a fiberglass coating and a 25 hp motor. This skiff ferries bundles of rope, trays full of bait and us to the boat every morning that we haul traps. It even breaks through the ice in a bitter January freeze. It lives at the latter-mentioned dock amidst a claustrophobic cluster of others. We literally have to push and shove the other skiffs aside to wedge in between them and get close enough to tie the painter to the rail. It's an ongoing struggle. But I don't suppose Cap's skiff would fit in at the other dock. It would be an ugly duck amongst the others even if Cap was willing to pay to tie up there.