Came across this sunken boat and quintessential Maine fish shack covered in lobster buoys on our drive to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens!
About the Boat: The ‘Sarah C.’, a 62-foot boat was built in 1959. Myron McLellan purchased the boat as a southern style shrimper in the early 1980s. At Goudy and Stevens in East Boothbay, shipbuilders moved the wheel house from the stern to the bow, converting it into a commercial ground fishing vessel. It saw its best years during the fishing boom in the 1980s, according to McLellan's wife Barbara. The boat sunk when it’s wooden hull started to leak. Today, the Sarah C. quietly rests as a relic of the past off Barter's Island Road in Back River, near Hodgdon Island bridge.
I love a good roadside attraction! Couldn’t pass by this larger-than-life ship captain, without stopping for a selfie!
Here’s a bit of local history: In 1968, one year after the Brown’s Wharf Inn opened, the owners placed the 25-foot, fiberglass, rebar and cement statue, now known as ‘Captain Brown’, beckoning visitors into their business. This iconic structure has stopped traffic for more than a half century.
So what inspired the owners to place a fisherman at the entrance? During a family trip to Strasburg, Pennsylvania, they spotted a giant statue of an Amish man, which spurred the idea to create a similar concept back home in Maine. They hired the same artist, Rod Shutt, who had designed similar figures for Walt Disney World in Florida. He built the statue in his shop in Pennsylvania, and shipped it to Boothbay on a flatbed truck. The statue is relatively low maintenance these days, just receiving a fresh coat of paint every 5 years.
We had lunch at Ports Pizzeria, which had good brick oven pizza and a deck overlooking a downtown area and the water.