One part of being a guide that no one ever thinks about is the administrative side of the business, the time it takes and what it costs. I spent yesterday driving to Boston to renew my Coast Guard Operators license. In the old days I simply filled out all of the paperwork got my physical, a drug test and simply mailed it all in with my $95 fee. Not a small undertaking but nothing compared to the post 9/11 world. Now I am required to take all of that paperwork to the Marine Safety Office in Boston and be fingerprinted in person.
This weekend was an early November gale we had winds of over 50 miles an hour from Saturday afternoon to late Sunday. Most of the day Saturday we had torrential rain that was as much horizontal as vertical. I knew that the seas would be something to see so Argy and I took a ride down to Pemaquid Point Saturday afternoon. There were waves that I would guess to be about twenty feet and a few higher ones crashing in on the rocks. There was pelting rain and salt spray flying through the air. We stood behind the brick fog signal so that we would not be blown back by the wind.
I spend a lot of time driving in October with trips to Libby Camps and Pittston Farm in northern Maine. In my travels I listened to The Long Tail by Chris Anderson I think that this line of thinking has huge implications for the guide business. I remember when I started out long ago that one of the hotel owners I visited to drop off brochures told me that I could not possibly succeed because I could not accommodate large groups. His rationale was that people did not do anything in groups of less than fifty.
