On a warm and misty Tuesday evening this past week, a group of about 20 kids, aged 4½ to roughly 13 or so, gathered eagerly at the Community House for a scavenger hunt. The Master of Scavenger Hunts, Ray Paetzold, greeted them and explained: a Spanish pirate from long ago became shipwrecked off the coast of Juniper Point, and his treasure aboard – chocolate -washed ashore. It would be found, Ray said, along a path around Juniper Point of “diabolically difficult” clues. All eyes widened. Some of the clues would be in Spanish, he explained, and at the end of the path, the ultimate treasure would be found. He added that if their group had an adult with them - who had attended the annual meeting the week before - that adult would have a particular clue (which had in fact been revealed in Ray’s video presentation earlier at the annual meeting).

Three teams were formed by age. Each was given a color code for their clues (secreted about Juniper Point in colored baggies), a pair of tweezers and a shovel. Each team followed a different path, racing around the point, working together to locate both Spanish and English clues, and then ferret them out from hidden locations with tweezers and shovels. After nearly two hours of feverish work, each team found the ultimate treasure chest back at the Community House. All no doubt slept well that night! 

Ray has been orchestrating scavenger hunts for over 40 years. He began when his children were young, and over the years has increased the complexity of the hunts. Some have been for teams which were in different countries – for example, the United States and Morocco – during which participants had to Skype to solve his clues located in both countries! Some hunts took weeks to conclude, some involved clues in different languages, some require visits to bakers, firemen and police in various towns to locate clues, and some require solving math and physics problems. Ray tailors his hunts to the characteristics of each particular group.

Perhaps his most personally satisfying effort was one involving his three children around Christmas. As part of his clue planning, he orchestrated the presence of all three of his children at the family home in California at the same time. Ray had also been working behind the scenes, arranging for his daughter’s husband, who had been working for the U.S. government in Afghanistan, to return home early to her as a surprise for Christmas as part of the ultimate treasure.

On a different note, on Saturday, the much-anticipated Pancake Breakfast and Tennis Exhibition was held. It started off with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, waffles, strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream. Many thanks to the cooks and other volunteers who did the provisioning and cooking! Well-fed attendees settled in to watch some truly great tennis. As Tennis Pro Dave Taylor recently reported, “Team Legends and Future Legends’” of Bill Barton, Rick Barton, George Himes and Azhar Meyer were declared the winners by a narrow margin against “Team Staff and Alumni Staff” of Dave Taylor, Susan Kirby, Meg Taylor and Soren Zimmer after an exciting display of triples, doubles, and singles.

One of the volunteer cooks, Cammie Beattie, reports that her family is busy in other ways. On Monday, her daughter-in-law, Heather, three grandchildren and her son Charlie depart for Iceland, where Heather is beginning a tenured professorship at the University of Reykjavik in the area of Early Childhood Family Education. On the same day, Cammie’s daughter Annie arrives from Minnesota with three different grandchildren to stay for a while, where they will be joined by Annie’s husband Dan. Never a dull moment in the Beattie household.

Finally, on Sunday evening the long-awaited Chowder Cookoff took place. There were 12 entries at the well-attended event, with every type of chowder imaginable, ranging from traditional clam chowders, Thai-inspired chowder, codfish chowder, “double fault chowder,” vegetable-chicken chowder and various recipes named for the presenting families. After sampling the goods for over an hour, attendees marked down their three favorites. 

Three judges made their own assessments of the entries: Liz Evans from the East Boothbay General Store, Kate Culbert, and Terry Paetzold, who explained that they “all come from interesting and varied culinary backgrounds with many years of experience.” (If you run into any of them, they no doubt have some good stories to tell …) The results: Azhar Meyer came in third place, Lee Corbin in second, and Sally Barter came in first place. Winning the most popular vote was Christina Edwards, who produced the famous Edwards Family Chowder.

That’s the news for now. Any news is most welcome and can be sent to Ann Swope at acswope@gmail.com.