Sunset on a Sand Bar

Bar Harbor at Sunset

23 June 2016

Seeing my boss in the audience of the morning session snaps me back to reality. Emails come pouring in from work. Ask the speaker this. Take notes on that. Use the tutorial to find a gene for us. I can't concentrate on there and here at the same time, so I stop answering email.

The afternoon session is up in the teaching lab, where we're taught how to do something I've been doing since 2009. I pick up a couple of new tricks.

The sky darkens as the session winds down. Most of the group who went out last night is interested in going into town for dinner again. I suggest hanging out downstairs until the rain passes. I need to poach the wifi there anyway, since the connection back at the cabins is still not working.

Eventually they decide to leave, catching a ride home from a classmate who drove. I tell them I'm going to stay here till the storm passes, and that I'll meet them back at the cabins soon enough. I'm the only one left in the dining hall, save for a single custodian who comes and goes. It's only 5:00 p.m.

Shannon texts me. The gang is bored and wants to head out early. I pack up and walk home, meeting three of them at the top of the long, uphill trudge on the dirt road to our cabins.

"There's still no wifi," Sarah says. "There's nothing to do." So we pile into two cars and drive into town. By the time we find a place to park, finish a round of drinks, put in our orders, and finally eat, we've got half an hour to sunset.

We wander down to the harbor again.

Jessie wants to go out on the sand bar. We walk back towards town and up a hill, then down a long driveway to the narrow entrance to Bar Island Park. We're in time for sunset and the tide is out.

On the far end of the bar is Bar Island, only accessible at low tide. Fumi, Jessie, and Sarah check the tide charts and we try to figure out if we'll be out of class in time to get back here tomorrow. The answer is definitely maybe.

Right now, though, the tide is coming back in, and it's not being slow about covering the sand bar. I'd forgotten how quickly the water levels change up here.

There's still enough light and land for us to hang around the tidal pools.  I pick up a rock and show it to Fumi. "Barnacles," I show her. "And snails." This is what makes Maine.

I crouch down to look at the fading sky reflect in the shallow water.

I ask Jessie, "Can I stay here forever?"

"Only if you want to drown."

The sand bar is definitely narrower than it was half an hour ago. We pick up the pace, collect Rohini and Shannon at the park entrance, and make our way back to the harbor. We sit by a dock, the sound of trickling water underneath us. We talk about the scientist life.

Overhead is a lobster.