Maine Island Trail Association

Normally on Wednesdays, Nathan, the senior curator, has some sort of informational workshop for the volunteers to educate them on things associated to maritime life, the shipyard, etc. Well, this week a representative from the Maine Island Trail Association (www.mita.org) came to talk to us. Essentially he was attempting to sell people on a membership to his organization but this truly is a great organization.

Heres what these people do... There are something like over 100 islands in this association. Some are public lands, some are private owners. Members of the organization are allowed to camp, hike, boat and kayak on any of these islands. Kayaking is the best way to get to most of them and some are much busier than others. In addition to access to the islands, the organization reguarly goes to these islands and their shores and cleans them up. Lots of stuff washes up: lobster traps, buoys, pieces of wood, even refrigerators, etc and they remove them. The membership was very affordable (under $75 a year, I think?) and you get discounts at various places, L.L. Bean, etc. So if you spend any money at all at these places, the membership pays for itself. Pretty cool of them and a great organization worth mentioning.

Thursday and Friday I had a little more copying to do with the Diazit machine. The boat shop here at MMM needed some plans done up and I was all for working with the machine again. The "Heavy Metal" exhibit that is going up in July is coming along. Its amazing how much goes into one of these exhibits and the things you never think about. The speaker boxes that are on a rotation of banging and clanking in the background even have to be assembled, painted to match, etc, and that was one of my tasks the last two days. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.