2005 Maine Coast Vacation

Once again, my nephew Spencer and I were able to spend about 8 days on Mt. Desert Island off the Maine coast. This time my Dad was able to drive up as well and we were able to get together several times for meals and sight-seeing. So what did we do? Camped out, cooked out (notably Downeast breakfasts each morning — bacon, eggs, grits 'n coffee), biked down (thank you) Cadillac Mountain (1350 ft.) all the way to lower Main Street in Bar Harbor (about 4 miles). A motorist following us said we reached a Lance-Armstrong-like 30 m.p.h. I traveled about 25 miles in Hummer (my wooden skiff) — all the way up through Somes Sound to Somes Harbor (from Manset in Southwest Harbor), plus voyages to Bear Island, around Greening Island and over to Northeast Harbor — usually while Spencer went fishing. He caught 6 mackerel in Southwest Harbor (thanks Neil for the fishing advice and bait!). While in Southwest Harbor I had an encounter with with a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and cutter, and posted the story here. (Some of the encounter is on videotape, which I thought may have been the problem). We took an early evening swim in Echo Lake (much warmer than the ocean's 54 degrees), did early evening "donuts" with Hummer in Eagle Lake, ooh-ed and aah-ed at scenic Maine coast vistas and villages, ate lobster (me and my Dad, but not so much Spencer), saw three gray harbor seals (one each in Somes Sound, Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor), red squirrels and red-headed woodpeckers. We enjoyed pizza, small barrel-bottled artificially-flavored sugar water, ice cream and frozen blueberries from Gott's Store, and took in two breakfast specials at The Wharf in Bass Harbor. All three of us took a trip over to Deer Isle where we were able to visit with Dave Haskell (a friend of my Dad's who rented his Deer Isle house to us Hepburns years ago — for $5.00 a week. T'was a homecoming of sorts. I went down onto the beach where I played as a child with my 3 sisters (my brother wasn't born yet) and realized this was probably where I first fell in love with the Maine Coast. What a fantastic time we had. A special thanks to the Suffern family for their hospitality in letting Spencer and I tent on their property in N. Berwick on the way up to M.D.I.. Photos posted here.