Trading in the ships railing for an ocean vacation balcony railing

Greetings from Moody Beach, Wells, Maine. I think the name Moody beach is funny because how can anyone be moody with this view? Our friend Karen ( friend and amazing artist) introduced us to Maine 19 years ago. I still remember sitting in our ice cream shop, Yes, we had an ice cream shop in 2005 (I have pictures of the ice cream shop but they are at home on my computer). We were sitting at one of the pretty tables that we had chosen for our beautiful ice cream shop. Karen was spending the day with us. We had a beautiful barn behind the pretty little building and had an art exhibit for the weekend featuring her work and some of her art students. We had a very busy summer between the two businesses that we were operating (Creperie Catherine restaurant and the Cremerie Catherine ice cream shop) and we were talking about going on a little vacation that September. Karen mentioned a place that she loved, Ogunquit, Maine. Lorraine (my sister, best friend and publisher) and I had never heard of it and took out a map, unfolded it, laid it on the table and after asking how do you spell Ogunquit located it on the map. It didn't seem that it was that far away and a trip to the ocean was set in motion. We sold soft serve and the most delicious Bilboquet sorbet products at our ice cream shop. Bilboquet is a company in Montreal that makes the most delicious tasting treats. My favorite was their coconut and mango sorbet. We had decided after one summer in the ice cream business that it was not for us and we sold the business to a fun couple from France early September. I have to share this one little story before continuing on to our first trip to Ogunquit in September 2005. For those of you who are not aware, when you serve soft serve ice cream, it is very important to clean the machine regularly and often. Our little ice cream shop was located on the bike path, a short walk down the road, halfway between Lorraine's house and my house in Mont Tremblant Quebec. I remember getting a frantic call from the new owner one morning. His accent from France made it almost impossible to understand what he was saying in French. I decided it would be easier to just walk down and see how I could help. I walked into the little ice cream shop and there he was standing in his underwear. He had spilled soft serve ice cream all over himself and in the rush to clean things up had misplaced an important part of the machine. I tried desperately hard not to laugh and with fresh eyes to what he thought was an impossible situation was able to locate the piece of equipment and help him put the machine back together again. That still makes me laugh! That August day sitting with Karen and the map of the East Coast of Maine spread out on the little table we planned our first trip to Maine. We selected the most direct route on the map from Tremblant to Ogunquit, tracing a route with our finger tips sliding over the creases in the paper that took us from Quebec over the border to Vermont, briefly through New Hampshire and then up the coast of Maine. The first time we visited we stayed close to Perkins Cove. We immediately fell in love with the area. One of the things I loved was the hard packed beach sand. It made it so easy to walk on and when the tide was out, the expanse of beach seemed to go on forever. I loved the temperature too. It was not too hot. I love the ocean but always found it too hot when visiting beaches in Mexico, Florida and Greece. Like Goldilocks, I had found the perfect beach...not too hot, not too cold...just right. We came back the following year and stayed on the beach and have been coming back every year since (with the exception of covid years and only refrained from coming because we were not allowed to travel into the US)

when I am not sailing, I still love to be by the water

Lorraine getting the first look at our favorite beach.

Lorraine waving to me. Someone had written a message in the sand and she went down to take a picture of it. It said Good Morning.

When Lorraine and I travel to Maine on our own we always stay in the same loft unit. It has two single beds that look out onto the ocean. This is a two story condo and downstairs there is another room with a king size bed that serves as a place to store our luggage. There are numerous sky lights and lots of windows. It is the perfect place to stay. There is a kitchen and we often bring a few cooking gadgets and seasonings to make cooking here easy. We often say we don't want to leave this beautiful place and opt to eat in. We started inviting friends along to enjoy this beautiful beach vacation and to accommodate everyone, we stay at the little house next door.

We always leave the sliding door open to hear the ocean while we sleep.

The kitchen area is really nice in this condo.

We actually started traveling with an air fryer. It makes cooking fun and easy. on the menu is scallops wrapped in bacon with spicy mayo on the side and coleslaw with maple mustard dressing. It was delicious.

We sit out every morning, even if it starts off cold. We wear lots of layers and as it gets warmers we remove a layer.

We will move to the little house unit next door on Saturday when our three girlfriends join us.

I enjoy going back to the same place for my vacation. I enjoy the familiarity of the area and because my job/sailing takes me to many different places, I am perfectly happy to stay in a place that I know. I have come here a few times by myself too. During the years when we had the restaurant, I would go away by myself for a couple of weeks each year. I used to love those solo trips. Operating a restaurant was all consuming so when I went away for two weeks I had two weeks that were all about me and what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go and what I wanted to eat. I came here a few times by myself and was here in March 2020 when there was talk of closing the border so I cut my vacation by a day and went home early. This year is the first time that we noticed damage from the winter storms. We noticed piles of rocks that we could not imagine the ocean carrying and depositing on peoples lawns and what we thought impossibly far, but the water is powerful. We noticed washed out roads and took a detour on one of our normal drives to bypass a road that needs to be repaired. Lorraine commented to someone that she noticed they installed new stairs down to the beach and she was told that the old stairs had been washed away during the January storm. It's so hard to believe that these things happen, but the ocean has a mind of her own...

“She’s always reaching out to touch you, an accused murderer of life, by far a beauty of all beauties, but never to be one’s wife. She’s the vast Atlantic Ocean”

— Catherine from a poem I wrote 40 years ago

The Maine beach vacation offers all sorts of weather, for instance, this morning it was so warm sitting in the sun that I had to come in at 09h40 and now 13h10, the clouds have moved in and I had to put on a sweater and close the windows. I love this unit we are staying in because I can sit beside the window, hear the waves and even though I am inside, I feel like I am outside. I have a beautiful potted plant of carnations. We picked them up on our drive here. We always stop in Williston, Vermont at a garden center. They have a little sandwich shop (The Garden of Eat’‘in) in the garden center and in the winter you can sit inside amongst the flowers. It was a beautiful day on Saturday when we drove here so we sat outside and enjoyed the warm sun. It is the halfway point of our trip and after lunch we walked around the garden center. When I saw the pots of carnations I thought of my mom. She had carnations in her garden and since we usually buy some flowers for our table in the vacation condo, I thought I would take a pot with me. They make me smile when I look at them.

Williston, Vermont and the garden Center that houses the little sandwich shop Garden of Eatin is the halfway point of our trip. We always stop here and in the colder months we sit in their greenhouse and enjoy our sandwiches. It’s worth stopping there.

We brought our parents to this favorite lunch stop. My mom and dad loved eating amongst the flowers too.

We moved the dining table beside the window for our week here. I love to sit here beside the window. It’s the perfect spot.

Our first evening is always at Billy's Chowder House. We are on their rewards program and every year enjoy getting two of their promotional glasses in the month of May. We have three girlfriends joining us on Saturday and the five of us will go back to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with tacos and then collect our promotional glasses. We have been doing this for years and I always smile when I open my cupboard at home and see the Billy's chowder house logo which immediately takes me back to the ocean. After I finish writing to you, Lorraine and I will go to the post office to mail out books. Lorraine packed some extra books so that we can mail out any orders that come in. I checked in with my position on the Union board and I am excited to say that for the first time, I am top of the board. First in line. I am hopeful that I will get a great job for the summer. I hope to sail in June, July and August. We are starting to work out some dates for book signings and speaking dates for the months of September and October. We will share the dates and locations once they are confirmed. Just a reminder to pre-order your copy of the new book. The Pre-orders give us an idea of how many books we will need to order. I will drop you a note in a few days again. I had the occasion to take a wonderful train ride from Toronto to Montreal last week and took some great video. I will share it with you when I have completed it. I love to take the train. I hope you have a great day and I will talk again with you soon.