A FOX IN THE FOG
They say if you don’t like the weather in Maine, you just have to wait five minutes. But when I board the ferry in Rockland, the fog is as thick as a cotton batting and stays that way for the hourlong trip across Penobscot Bay.
As we approach Vinalhaven the fog finally begins to thin a bit. I can see the lobster fleet across Carvers Harbor, but there’s still no sign of the sun.
Mark Jackson is waiting for me by the landing. He leads me down to the floating dock and his 2000 Pulsifer Hampton. The owner of Vinalhaven by Water, he uses the boat to show tourists around the area. He acquired her five years ago after retiring from teaching vocational skills at the Vinalhaven School. “I get paid to boat,” he says, “and it pays for the boat.”
Hamptons have a long history in Midcoast Maine. The design is based on the Casco Bay Hampton, a wooden lobster boat built by Charlie Gomes of Harpswell between 1902 and the 1950s. The Hampton was designed as a durable workboat, primarily used for inshore lobstering along the rugged coastline.
Its namesake, the Pulsifer Hampton, was built in Brunswick, Maine, by Dick
