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Marty’s Memories - Hamilton Beach and Fog by Marty Trower

Going to Matinicus Island during the week after Labor Day has become an enthralling tradition for me now.There are two reasons why I don’t feel one bit disloyal to Chebeague.The first is that my partner, Lock, has been going there for that same week for about 25 years. I’m honored to have been invited to join him there for the last five.The second is that 65 years ago my parents, Gordon and Margaret Trower and their long-time great Chebeague friends Jack and Ginna Toohey and Henry and Nancy Hubbell, decided to take themselves out to Matinicus one long weekend in the summer of 1954. That idea started one of the biggest unexpected adventures of their lives. They were caught in hurricane Carol aboard the Mary A. This was a small water taxi type of boat back then used for sporadic public transportation to the remote island, twenty plus miles out to sea from Rockland. The Chebeague visitors had a harrowing time being buffeted and blown and drenched but were finally settled into their boarding house on Matinicus.I have black and white photos of men in oilskins scurrying in all directions, their backs shiny with blown rain and seawater, everyone trying to save what they could from destruction.The Chebeaguers were too were frantic with worry to see or enjoy much of Matinicus. They wanted to get back home to monitor their own boats and property.

the Gastons. They were afraid for our safety as the storm was raging in Casco Bay as well. We were allowed a quick outing and went with Mary Toohey to the front yard of the Soule sisters (now Jack Turner’s) house to watch. I remember having the air pulled out of my mouth when I tried to face the wind. You could lean back into it as if you were trying to lie down and the wind would hold you up. How that little scrawny body of mine stayed put, I wonder. Then I remember some sort of rope leash attached to me by my nervous adult sitter. So I had to go to Matinicus, to capture and enjoy what my parents and their friends never got to do. They returned to Chebeague to find that one boat had broken loose and crashed and was badly damaged on the shore and the other had capsized and sank at its mooring. There was damage everywhere in the bay and all over Maine. This year, while out on Matinicus, hurricane Dorian lurked in the area and I thought that maybe this was going to be an adventure for us. The water taxi and planes did not travel on that one day, but it turned out to be just a glancing hit. The only near calamity was when we walked on wild and beautiful South Sandy beach and a huge rogue wave came bounding in at us, knocking us all down. Lock’s precious Grateful Dead hat got thrown and sucked into the undertow and if not for brave, wet rescuers, this could have could have been a disaster.

I was eight and on Chebeague with my sister, staying with Canadian friends of my parents who owned the Barnacle before

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OCTOBER 2019 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR