Best-selling author, lobster boat captain, novice oyster farmer, and proud owner of the smaller Earnest, the larger Select, and a charter boat company . . . Linda Greenlaw has a lot going on these days. And she fulfills other important roles as well—for example, as daughter (her parents live on Isle au Haut in the summer), boat builder’s wife (her husband is Steve Wessell of Wesmac Custom Boats), and auntie to 4-year-old nephew Aiden (ready for adventure and pleased to “jump in the skiff” with her any time).
This summer I spoke with Linda, 60, as she stood in the parking lot of Wesmac in Surry, gazing at her new boat. It is always a pleasure to catch up with her. Nothing has dimmed her great energy and enthusiasm for life—particularly for Maine life on or near the water.
Mary:
What are your plans for this summer? How is your summer going along so far?
Linda:
Wait till you see my new boat. Here’s the thing. I still have my own lobster boat, the Earnest. And in fact, I did a lobster boat tour yesterday, which is really early in the season for us to start doing charters. So, I’m setting traps. And I’m growing oysters. I don’t know if I was doing that last time we talked or not. My son-in-law and I are growing some oysters, and so that’s kind of fun. But the new boat is just for doing charters.
This new boat is absolutely stinking gorgeous. I’m standing in the parking lot looking at her. We’re moving it down to our shore property Monday and hopefully launching within a few days of that. It’s name is Select, and the tour company is Select Charters.
Mary:
What kinds of tours are you going to do with Select that you couldn’t offer before?
Linda:
I’ve got so many fun things that I’m going to do with this boat. I’m partnering with an astronomer. His name is Charlie Sawyer, and he’s giving me 16 dates throughout the summer—new moon dates—that we can do night sky tours. There’ll be a two-hour tour, half an hour off the dock, shut everything on the boat down and drift around and let this guy do his thing with a laser pointer for an hour and a half, an hour, back to the dock. It’s going to be so much fun.
There will be future dinner cruises, some serving Chinese food made by the great Chef Blue. I think I’m going to limit them to maybe 30 people. I can take up to 49 in Select, but I think trying to do a dinner on the boat, it might be better if people weren’t on top of each other. And I have, once a week, a lunch destination, which is like a dock and dine type of thing.
And the big new boat’s available for private tours, for bigger parties. One I’m doing is a wedding party, a two-hour boat ride with their people. I’m picking them up at Little Deer Isle in a dock there. A girlfriend of mine is going to do lobster rolls on the boat. And I’m doing a private tour with a Rotary Club in Ellsworth.
I’ve also done charters that were for the spreading of ashes. I’ve done those in the past, with a small boat, but it will be better with the big boat because then more people can get aboard. I know it sounds strange, but those have been almost festive. People are remembering their loved one who is no longer with them, and there is time of silence and ceremony, but there is also true celebrating of that person, with toasts and with that time and experience together.
At some point, it would be so much fun to have an event with just acoustic music, nothing electric, on the boat, just maybe two or three pieces and just a small group. Wouldn’t that be fun?
So, things like that—it’s going to be amazing!
Mary:
Are you going to be always the driver of the boat or the captain?
Linda:
No, I’m not, and I’ll tell you why: because I have to be aboard my lobster boat. The boat can’t haul traps without me aboard it. So, if it’s a lobster tour, I have to be on my old boat. My problem is I want to do everything.
So people are not guaranteed to see me. I mean, I want to be aboard the boat as much as I can be. I do have two other licensed captains who have licenses that enable them to run this boat, and they’re champing at the bit. They can’t wait because this boat is so nice and it’s going to be so much fun, but they’re going to have to arm wrestle me for it.
Mary:
Are you still writing books?
Linda:
I am working on a book. The working title is The Boat Builder’s Wife. It’s OK to mention it . . . because then I’ll have to finish it.
I will say, I probably am going to put it aside, pick it up again in the winter, just because things are so crazy busy this time of year and all summer. But yes, I am. I have a segment of my life that I have not written about, and that is the last, oh, almost nine years now, since I moved off Isle au Haut—I still do have my beautiful home there, but I just don’t get out there very often. Those years are my married life, and being married to a boat builder, and growing oysters, and doing charters. This is all new territory for me.
Mary:
That’s great—when done it will be like covering “ten years of changes.” You mentioned one change: what’s involved in the oyster-growing operation?
Linda:
That’s kind of fun work. We’re new at the aquaculture thing. My son-in-law and I took a course called Aquaculture and Shared Waters two winters ago. Not last winter, the winter before, whatever year that was. So we’re new at it, but we’re enjoying it. It’s another thing that we can do on the water. The state of Maine is putting a lot of effort and resources into aquaculture.
And it’s a good thing, if you’re a fisherman, to diversify. You can use your capital investment in another way. I don’t know if we’re ever going to make anything with these oysters, but we’re learning a lot. The goal is to make some money with the oysters, but so far it’s only cost us money because we’re learning and we don’t have anything big enough to sell yet. But we’ll get there.
Mary:
Do you ever, ever go on vacation that’s away from your work?
Linda:
No, no. Nope, no. No, we don’t. And we went to Isle au Haut last weekend because we were getting my parents’ house opened up from being winterized and doing a little spring cleaning and a couple of projects at my house. I guess that was as close as we could get to a vacation. And it did feel that way, just getting out of our everyday routine. It was really fun. We enjoyed it. It was good. I guess that’s about the best we can do for vacation. You know what? If I wanted to go on vacation, I’d go. But I guess I don’t want to.
Mary:
Most of your life you’ve been single and on your own. How is it going, married life?
Linda:
It’s good. It’s good. I think I was fortunate to marry the nicest man on the planet.
Mary:
That helps.
Linda:
He is. He’s just a really nice man. He’s a workaholic, as I am, so he gets it. He’s not trying to pull me away from work to do something—because he’s working himself.
His one hobby is the gun club in Blue Hill. He’s a member of the gun club, he has a very small close group of friends that he likes to go one night a week and target shoot. And he really enjoys it. But other than that, he’s working, period. He works, then he comes home. So that’s good, that he’s so busy, he can’t bug me about me being so busy.
Honestly, that’s been a problem in the past with boyfriends. If they said, “Oh, come on, let’s take off and go here or there,” I would say, “I can’t. I have 600 lobster traps in the water. I can’t just take off and leave.”
But my husband, he’s older than I am, and when he talks about retiring and semi-retiring, his idea of semi-retirement is instead of coming into the shop at six in the morning, he comes in at eight in the morning. So, that’s semi-retired, right? And if he goes away for lunch, and sometimes he doesn’t come back, that’s retired, right? He’s a slacker.
Mary:
You’re working with your son-in-law on the oysters. How is your daughter doing?
Linda:
She’s great. She’s gainfully employed, loves her job. They’re really into their dogs. They have a full-grown dog and a new puppy. I guess the new puppy is not so new anymore. I’m such an idiot about animals. Don’t ask me anything more. I know they’re dogs. Okay. Anything beyond that, I don’t know. They’re dogs. One is big and one is little, right? And I think they’re the same kind because they’re the same color?
Mary:
Your daughter and son-in-law don’t have any children yet, right?
Linda:
No, they don’t. Selfishly, I hope they have kids because I know they’d be amazing parents. And I love babies. I love kids. I have the coolest four-year-old nephew, my sister’s son, Aiden. He’s this redhead spitfire. He is so much fun. And he adores me. Can I say that?
Mary:
I am sure he does.
Linda:
He adores me, and I look at this kid, and I’m thinking, “How do we get so lucky to have this person in our lives?” He wants to do everything with me, which is so much fun for me. Because he wants to go for rides in the skiff. Seriously, you jump into a skiff, and it just brings you back to your childhood anyway. It’s the best. He’s the best.
Mary:
Do you get to see much of the rest of the family?
Linda:
My parents live with us in the winter and, I don’t know, it feels natural to me. And again, fortunately, I’m married to the nicest man on the planet. So, we have this extended family thing going on, and it’s great. My parents are on Isle au Haut right now. They’ve been there for two days, and they’re coming back today. My father is 91, and my mother is 87. I feel so fortunate. I look at my friends and people in my life. How many of us, at my age, still have both parents? And they’re in pretty damn good health.
Mary:
What do you think about aging?
Linda:
You gain a lot of things with maturity. And you lose a lot of things with maturity, but you gain other things. So, it’s a good balance.
