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Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

No matter where you’re from… a born Mainer and have the pleasure of being there all the time, or from away, like me and like to visit Maine every summer… or just once in your lifetime, if you ever find yourself near Bath, Maine I highly recommend fitting into your trip this delightful stop.

After driving on the bridge of Hwy 1 past Bath, ME so many times and seeing the intriguing view of the huge ships being built by Bath Iron Works below in the water, with the massive cranes decorating the skyline, my husband and I finally made it a priority to stop at the Maine Maritime Museum which is a hop, skip and jump just past the Iron Works.

There is so much to experience at the museum…

Wonderful old photos like this one giving a glimpse into the deep history lobstering, fishing and boat building in Maine has been for generations.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime MuseumAs they say in Maine, I’m ‘from away’… but still have a great appreciation for the industrious spirit of Mainers.

What dairy farms are to Wisconsin, where I’m from, is what lobstering is to Maine. It’s a hard vocation that takes scads of dedicated labor but there seems to be instilled in one’s spirit a love for that life’s work that comes with pride and passion passed down from one generation to the next.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

At the museum, which is on a gorgeous water front grounds, there are several displays, including a special building celebrating lobstering’s rich history in Maine.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

It was interesting to see all the different styles of lobster traps used through the years:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

And this is something fun for most people that travel through Maine…

the buoys!!

It’s super common to have some decorating the yards and cottages on the coast, but did you know this about the buoys in Maine…

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

Each and every family has their own buoy coloring and marking, making them unique to their family lobstering business. So not only do they mark where the lobster cages are resting on the bottom of the ocean, they also mark whose cage (and hence, lobsters) it is! Cool, huh? (If you were a lobstering family, what pattern and color would you make your buoys be?)

This map shows you where each family set their traps!

Then inside the main building, it feels ship-like inside the main hall, with separate rooms splaying off to each side. Each with their own unique displays.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

There are wonderful antique displays pertaining to ship building.

These were the models precisely to scale that the ship builders would refer to as they were making the much larger version:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

There are many wonderful antique paintings of famous ships, some, I’m sure were built right here in Bath.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

I don’t know much about ship identification, but last summer I watched the Tall Ships come in, it was beautiful and fascinating!

I don’t recall seeing any with 5 masts though, wow!

There are also actual full model ships like this gorgeous one:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

It’s true that all ships are referred to in the female vernacular…

But, did you know they aren’t always named with female names?

Nor are the figureheads (you know those wooden decorations projecting off the front bow of the boat) always women!

Take a look at this original figurehead from the 1880’s:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Samuel Skolfield II 1884 figurehead

This fellow is from a ship that was rebuilt in the 1880’s, replacing the original ship that was shipwrecked. Both ships had the same name… ‘Samuel Skolfield II’ and named after a family member of the shipbuilder. But the ship itself was still referred to as ‘her’.

This figurehead was originally painted all white when it was adorning the ship, I think I like it better with this paint finish though.

Here’s an interesting story about the museum obtaining it…

When the museum found out about the figurehead, shocked it was still in existence and in really good condition, they made arrangements to get it to their museum in Bath… via hearse! I’m not sure why they wound up choosing that mode of transportation, but it worked and unlike most things transported in a hearse, this one has found a 2nd life. 😉

Of course, no ship display would be complete with one in a bottle…

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

I loved the shape of the bottle and the color of the frothing sea in this wonderful vintage work of art.

Once we were done inside the buildings, it was time for the tour!

This was my favorite part!!

Remember I said the museum was on the water front? The tour is aboard a boat. It takes you down to get a much closer view of the Bath Iron Works:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

You can see the bridge for Hwy 1 in the background… that’s usually that angle our view is from where we get a glimpse of these cranes and the ships being built.

But this day, we were really getting a terrific view of the production, including this:

 

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

it was ‘top secret’ ship being built for the military. Although it must not be too top secret as they showed it to us and didn’t tell us not to take pictures of it. I knew it was A-OK to show this picture I took of it after we saw photos of it for sale in the museum’s gift shop. 🙂

Here is a map of this part of the Maine coast:

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

The Iron Works are right by Hwy 1, the Maine Maritime Museum is a little further down, then on the opposite side of the water further down a little more is the Doubling Point Lighthouse.

When I first saw it, it was so tiny, that I actually thought it was someone’s ‘dock decoration’.

But in reality, it was built in the 1880’s and is maintained by the Coast Guard.

Even though it’s not tall, it marks the point of land that juts out into the water. If you’ve ever been by the ocean when a heavy fog can suddenly roll in and suddenly hide everything from view, you can understand the importance of lighthouses helping to navigate through treacherous waters.

SimpleDecoratingTips.com Visiting Maine Maritime Museum

There is so much more to see at the Maine Maritime Museum I haven’t told you about… from the seals we saw frolicking in the water on our boat tour, to the huge lobster car, to the Captain’s helm complete with a ship wheel you can sit at and pretend you’re the captain.

If you haven’t the opportunity to visit the museum, I hope this was a fun little mini tour for you… but if you do have the chance to stop by, here is the website and contact info.

As always, please feel free to share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook and Pinterest the more the merrier!

I appreciate you stopping by.

 

 

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Welcome to Simple Decorating Tips! I’m Liz, the author, and I’m so glad you’re here!

My goal is to encourage you with DIY tips, techniques and tutorials so you feel empowered to join in the fun! Along with this DIY blog, I have a DIY shop, Frame and Frills!
Frame and Frills is in Wisconsin. I stock amazing DIY products! Fusion Mineral Paints, ReDesign Transfers, Decoupage, Waxes, loads of DIY Goodies, re-done Furniture and more! Even if you're not close to where the shop is in Wisconsin, good news... I ship nationwide, (USA) daily! Check out the link here and let's get your DIY on!
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Welcome to Simple Decorating Tips! I'm Liz, the author, and I'm so glad you're here! My goal is to encourage you with DIY tips, techniques and tutorials so you feel empowered to join in the fun! Along with this DIY blog, I have a DIY shop, Frame and Frills!
Frame and Frills is in Wisconsin. I stock amazing DIY products! Fusion Mineral Paints, ReDesign Transfers, Decoupage, Waxes, loads of DIY Goodies, re-done Furniture and more! Even if you're not close to where the shop is in Wisconsin, good news... I ship nationwide, (USA) daily! Check out the link here and let's get your DIY on!


Disclosure Policy: According to FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that some of the content of this blog may be a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

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Sharing is great! Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook and Pinterest and Flipboard and Houzz and YouTube the more the merrier! I appreciate you stopping by. But please remember that all photos, images, text and content are owned by SimpleDecoratingTips.com. So anything you share, please be sure it always links back to my original post it came from. Please do not remove watermarks, crop or edit anything without written permission from me first.

Disclosure Policy: According to the FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that this blog is a source of income and may occasionally incorporate endorsements or testimonials and shopping links. It is important to me to disclose this to you. The content of this blog is a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. Products provided to me by my advertising partners for my review are given to me free of charge with no cost to myself. This does not ensure a positive review of the product in any way. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and always make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

Disclosure Policy According to Federal Trade Commission guidelines, I want you to be aware that this blog is a source of income and may occasionally incorporate endorsements or testimonials. It is important to me to disclose this to you. The content of this blog is a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. Products provided to me by my advertising partners for my review are given to me free of charge with no cost to myself. This does not ensure a positive review of the product in any way. My truthful opinion will be what I state, no matter if I'm getting paid or not. Accuracy and truth are the priority for me on this blog's information, no matter if it's about a product or anything else. Not every product or service or store etc. may be mentioned in each and every post as an affiliate. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and always make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post.

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