Stewman's Lobster Pound, Bar Harbor, ME
26 May 2019
"Cruise ship," Jack says, peering out the window.
"Mmmmph."
It's foggy out there and my camera won't focus when I go for the 40x zoom. When this happened a few weeks ago I thought there must have been something close in the sight line that was confusing the lens. Not this time. There's nothing between me and Bald Porcupine but fog. I give up and zoom out again.
The island really does look like it's sleeping.
Bald Porcupine is south. To the east, between Bald Porcupine and Burnt Porcupine, there are more islands in the distance. Not that I can see much of them.
How about a foggy panorama?
Can I zoom in on low tide? Nope. Zoom out again.
If you don't like the view, wait a minute. The fog is changing.
This cruise ship looks like the same one as the one parked outside last year. The name looks different, though. I'd zoom in on it but I bloody can't. The ship makes the Margaret Todd look tiny by comparison.
The sun is coming out a little maybe? This is the eastern tip of Bar Island.
My buddy, Bald Porcupine, again.
Breakfast is included here. It's nothing special. It's self-serve. The coffee today isn't worth drinking. After breakfast we head to the Shore Path, where I stand under the double-trunked hemlock that has entertained me all winter.
I do a screen-grab from the live feed.
Finding myself requires some editing trickery. The red dot is me; the white one is Jack.
It's chilly enough out for gloves.
Just beyond the trees is a stairway down to the rocks. I know that anything green or black can be slippery, especially if there's been rain, which there was last night. That doesn't stop me from stepping out as far as I can.
I land on my butt, and slip again trying to get up. My gloves are full of algal muck. So are my jeans. We go back to the hotel room so that I can soak my dirty clothes in the sink and get changed. The muck comes off right away but I let things soak while we go out again.
I wonder if any of this was caught on the Bar Harbor Cam East video feed. Probably not. Too bad.
We set out again, sticking to the gravel path.
Up there! That's close to what I was going for when I made that glass vessel. I can't zoom in on it, and the path curves away and ends before we can get any closer.
The end of the Shore Path puts us on Main Street in Bar Harbor. One block over is the Sunday farmers' market. Acadia Coffee Company should be here, and I can get a decent cup. (If you haven't had their coffee yet, you should.)
There's a guy there who looks owner-ish, and I strike up a conversation with him. His company is so small that a) he recognizes my name and b) he's run out of ground beans here. I won't be getting my cup after all. Not to worry, though. His business partner owns Choco-Latte down the street, and his wife, who is also a business partner, just opened a stall in a space called Thrive, down towards the harbor. "It's called Coffee Matter," he says. He gives me his name and offers us a tour tomorrow. "Text me after 2:00," he says.
There are some local cheeses and breads on offer in other stalls. When we finish we make our way towards Thrive, stopping at a craft fair on the Village Green along the way.
There's a lot of wood work and photography, and some pottery. No blown glass, I notice. I do see some glass earrings that look handmade. I hazard a guess as to how, and the woman at the booth is impressed that I figured it out. Now we're in a long conversation about glassblowing and torchwork that I can't seem to get out of. It doesn't help that she's from western Warren County originally, and it seems like I'll never get out of here once she starts drawing a picture of the glass pods she makes at Christmastime. Pretty cool, though. I buy a pair of the earrings and we walk on down to Thrive.
The space is on a side street, new, and full of what I gather to be locals. They're young. The space houses one of those trendy woo-health fast-ish food places and Coffee Matter, for now. More is coming, if the sheets of plastic walling off the rest of the building are any indication. I stand in line for a Peruvian pour-over. Jack has found us a table.
This is good stuff. I only get my beans from Acadia and Homestead now.
As we're standing up to leave, Chris, the owner of Acadia Coffee Company, appears. "You made it down here!" he says. I feel less like a tourist right now. It's good to see that there's a community here beyond the gift shops and restaurants on Main Street.
We're near enough to Bar Island and the sand bar that I coax Jack into a visit. The tide is coming in. There's enough sand bar to play on for a while, though.
As many times as I've crunched around here, it's never the same sand bar twice. This is the best time, when the tide is out and I can walk as far as the water will let me.
The fog is still with us. My 40x zoom is still not working.
Fronds of seaweed, attached to rocks that are festooned with snails and barnacles, lie exposed at my feet.
People will put cairns on anything. This looks to be an old buoy, but I'm not sure.
In the harbor, the cruise ship's ferries scuttle back and forth like little beetles. The Margaret Todd waits at the dock for her 2:00 load.
I walk out onto a finger of rocks, water coming in on both sides of my feet.
I take a couple of pictures, and in that time the tide has come in enough to surround me. I hop over to higher ground.
Bald Porcupine wears a fog hat.
From the western side the sun pokes through, heating the shallow water enough that wisps of fog at ground level stream over the sand bar.
From where we're standing, we can see some of the landed gentry's land, with Acadia's mountains in the background.
It's getting on towards 2:00. It's time for some lunch. We climb off the sand bar and walk down the hill into town. The fog has nearly obscured the cruise ship. Good.
The food at Stewman's Lobster Pound is middling at best, but the place is right on the water, so we keep going back.
"Did you guys come off the tour boat?" our server asks.
"Oh, hell, no!" I tell him.
Bar Harbor is a dog-friendly town. We meet two at lunch.
The fog is shifting a little. There's the ship.
Sovenir moose are on display at a tiny shop on the dock next to the restaurant.
We go back to the hotel. I'm itching to go out again. Jack stays in this time. I take the lumpen glass vessel with me. It fits in my jacket pocket.
This is not the proper coastline.
Lumpy poses next to a cairn.
This is silly. I'm not going to write the blog from Lumpy's point of view.
This is Balance Rock. It's a few hundred yards past the two hemlock trees, down in the tidal zone.
I see you, Bar Harbor Camera East.
Because I can't zoom, you can't see that this is a cherry tree that has yet to bloom. Spring is way late up here this year.
I walk past the Margaret Todd to the floating dock and I sit down at the end to take pictures and get a screen grab from the Bar Harbor Cam on the harbor side of the hotel. I'm the little red dot at the edge of the dock on the left.
From here I can get some good views of the Margaret Todd and the cruise ship, which looks to be leaving.
This is one of several floating docks with ramps.
I walk along the little stretch of beach between the docks, watching the water come in.
Bald Porcupine wears a fog coat.
Broooooooonk! Brooooooonk! The cruise ship (Zaandam; I saw the name as it turned to leave) sounds its horn as it passes between the islands, and again a few minutes later, and again a few minutes after that.
Lumpy gets to pose a few more times.
Uploading the day's photos, I wonder if I've found a match for Lumpy after all.
A little cut-and paste might help.
Yeah, no. Not yet.
By evening the fog has settled in so thick that we can't see anything from our hotel room.
At 11:30 we turn the lights out.
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
Another one already?
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
"We get it. You're here."
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
Broooooooooonk! Brooooooonk!
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