Before too long we found the uniquely named Bittersweet Landing Marina in South Bristol. It is run by a very engaging gentleman named Mike who had received excellent reviews on Active Captain.
We arrived by 2:20 and Mike found us a mooring in the long rather rather narrow harbor there. This harbor is filled with lobster and fishing boats. Many of them were piled high with lobster traps. We were curious as to why they weren’t out in the water and Mike explained that the fishermen had two sets of traps. They could quickly replace the ones they just brought in with these and clean the used ones later.
Joe, Jonny and I took our dinghy in to check out the town and walk Archie. South Bristol is clearly not a tourist town though there are many second homes for people who come for the summer. There are no cute gift shops or tee shirt shops (thankfully) but there was a small grocery store with lobster tanks out back.
Mike recommended that we go to the South Bristol Lobsterman Cooperative where we could order a lobster dinner to take back to the boat or eat on the deck. We went in to see what they had and ordered four dinners for later in the day from the lovely young lady who worked there. They were advertising a rosemary clam chowder which sounded delicious but they were all out. The young woman, a college student in Halifax Nova Scotia, found one last serving for Jonny and me and it was delicious!
We walked around the tiny town looking for the boatyard so we could pay Mike.
We were told by a friendly local that we had to cross the bridge that spanned The Gut to get to Mike’s office. The Gut is a very narrow water passage that connects Johns Bay and Booth Bay. The bridge is a small counter-levered draw bridge that raises on demand. We waited a few minutes for it to go down and then found our way to Mike’s boatyard.
Later that evening, Jonny made two trips on the dinghy to take us all to the lobster co-op for our feast. We had steamers, lobster, corn on the cob and cole slaw. We haven’t gotten tired of this traditional Maine dinner yet! We brought our own drinks and they provided all four dinners on one huge tray. We’ve found that the price of lobster dinners is not as high as we were expecting. In fact we’ve paid between $25 - $30 for all of our lobster dinners. If we wanted to buy the lobster and bring it back to the boat to cook it, the prices were much lower. Here’s a before and after picture of our dinner tray (photos courtesy of Joe)!.
After our feast, we dropped Joe and Pat off at Glory Days and took Archie for a sunset spin around the harbor. South Bristol was quite a find for us and we’re happy we discovered it!
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