Picton Castle is a sail training barque based in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. After completing three cicrumnavigations ranging in length from 12 to 18 months, the ship is presently sailing between European ports.

Maritime history is filled with captains' logs. Indeed, these days, logs are required by the Coast Guard for passenger carrying vessels. A typical captain's log might contain notations of course, position, speed, compass reading, the weather, sea conditions and which crew is on watch, among many other things. And I am sure that the Picton Castle keeps one of these as well. 

What we know they keep is a Captain's Log as a Blog! Dan Moreland and sometimes his crew, writes frquently and eloquently about life aboard his ship, about their destinations and history. Of course there are many many more topics as well as photograph.

Pack your seabag and go sailing or armchair sail with the Picton Castle's Captain's Log.

Olga Gourianov
Innkeeper
Inn at Camden Place

As a long-time The Mammals fan, I just had to go see Mike and Ruthy performing with Ruth's dad - Jay Ungar and Molly Mason last night at the Chocolate Church Performing Arts Center in Bath. Ruth and Mike are part of The Mammals with my husband's friend Tao Rodriguez Seeger - Pete Seeger's grandson. We've been fans for a long time and always go to see them when they perform in Maine. Last night was quite different - a lot less rock'n'roll and a lot more absolutely phenomenal fiddling. Jay's "Ashokan Farewell", "Lovers' Waltz" and "Wizzard's Walk" were absolutely flawless. They performed a new piece Jay and Molly created for a new Ken Burns' film coming out in 2009 (of The War fame most recently).

The music was fantastic but my favorite part was Will - Mike and Ruth's son who came on stage after intermission and spent the second half of the show hanging out on his mom's back while she took turns playing some amazing fiddle, ukelele, upright base and sang some beautiful harmonies. Will piped in a couple of times, mostly during the instrumentals - I guess he likes his solo. All in all - a great time! It's fantastic to see three generations on stage. Hard not to wonder whether Will might pick up a fiddle himself one day.

A quiet day here at the inn, so I've been doing some research about the new Google Mobile application - the one that offers voice recognition in a Google search. Lots of people seem to be very happy with it. After all, Google has applied a decade's worth of tracking keywords users enter into its search engine, and that's not a small number by any means. I've been a proud owner of an iPod Touch for several months and haven't missed the obvious phone feature of the iPhone until the newly released voice recognition application for searching the web. I'll leave the discussion of the major differences between the iPhone and the iPod touch for another time, but if you're contemplating getting one or the other - this is something to consider. I wish Apple would consider adding a microphone feature to the iPod Touch. And, Apple, while you're at it, consider throwing a speaker in there as well. Then I'd recommend it without reservation.

Christmas-by-the-Sea is just a couple of weeks away! Lots of activities are happening around town  on the weekend that Santa arrives with his elves by, of course, a lobster boat! There are open houses, huge sales at stores across town, and there is even a 5k run.

 Yours truly recently signed up to participate in the Frozen 5K - from the top of Mt. Battie to downtown Camden. Who will come join me?

Photo from the http://www.camdenme.org site

A new airline - Cape Air - cut the ribbon today at its ceremony commemorating a new destination - our very own Rockland, ME. Knox County airport which has been serviced mainly by US Airways and private jets is about 15 minutes away from most destinations in Midcoast Maine. Now Cape Air offers extremely competitive rates between Rockland and Boston - at the most recent check $55 including tax for the 45 minute flight. We hope the competition will keep the rates low and the flights frequent! Boston residents now consider Midcoast Maine a weekend getaway!

I was thinking about family today, particularly my ancestors, people I've never met, but know that not only did they exist, they lived fruitful fulfilling lives. Any time I am asked if there is one person I'd like to meet, I always opt for one of my ancestors. All these thoughts lead me to look into the variety of geneological research available on the web these days and I found a resource pertinent to our local community - Knox County through the US GenWeb project.

Really, I wasn't trying to copy Starbucks in their attempt to give away a free cup of coffee to everyone who voted yesterday.

 I was sitting at the Front Desk - which, those of you who've been here, know offers a great view of the street - and watching the masses passing by on their way to the neighboring Fire Station to vote. So I took out my trusty permanent marker and quickly sketched a "Come in to say hello and for a cup of coffee on us!" sign and taped it to The Inn at Camden Place red sign on Washington Street.

I brewed our fantastic Organic Mexican Chiapas coffee, pulled out some treats and set up to watch the masses pouring through the doors.... of the fire station. IWell, at the end of the day, I did get a few folks who dropped in for a visit. Take that, Starbucks!

Well..... where to begin? We've had such a fantastic busy summer season that, sure enough, we got swept away in the daily operations of the inn and making sure our guests had a wonderfull time. The good news - now it's quiet and the blog is back to the forefront of our thoughts.

And thus begins a new installment of the Inn at Camden Place blog! Welcome! Stick around, you won't be disappointed!

Just today I got an email from the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce asking for parties interested in having a float during the Christmas-by-the-Sea parade to get in touch and get the ball rolling. Should we do it? Christmas-by-the-Sea is a popular festival - Santa usually arrives by boat - happening this year on the weekend of Dec. 5-7th.

Yours truly just signed up for the Frozen 5K - starting at the top of Mt. Battie and ending in downtown Camden. 

Speaking of which, now yours truly must scoot off to the gym at the Y.

Thousands have been waiting for a year for the World's Largest Lobster Cooker to make its first public appearance at the Maine Lobster Festival, held annually in Rockland, about 10 minutes away. The festival started yesterday and continues through the weekend.

The weather is shaping up to be partly cloudy and a pleasant 70-75 range with a 30% chance of rain for the weekend. A high quality lobster roll might set you back $10, but you'll never forget it. More reasonably priced lobster dinners served with everything but the kitchen sink as well as plenty of seating are available under large tents lined with tables. Plenty of fair-type food, rides, vendor booths and of course everything lobster: from aprons to ice cream to the real deal.