Strange Trip Part Five: On the Balcony, In the Harbor

 

Luxury Yachts on Frenchman Bay

13 September 2020

Outdoor dinner reservations are nearly impossible, so we opt for takeout. I'm happy to fetch the food. I leave a little early so I can stick my head into a shop or two in search of moose socks or dessert. It's also an excuse to pass by the harbor, again. 

There's no moonlight on the water tonight. Instead it's ostentatious LEDs on the giant mast of a sailboat and on the water line of the nearly cruise-ship sized not-cruise-ship.

Then, of course, there are the balcony spiders. At least four of them have orb webs along the glass slats. Some of them are skittish, but one in particular doesn't seem to mind my presence. 

The ventral side is a combination of creepy and colorful.

I want to get a picture of the dorsal side. I lean over the balcony and move the camera as close to the spider as the sucky autofocus will allow. 

Wow! This one's beautiful!

I have no idea what kind of spider this is, and the internet is not helping me at all.

The shadow from the camera's flash makes this little guy look much more menacing than he actually is.

14 September 2020

This is an interlude between photo-heavy adventures. The wind is up today. I'm heading for the carriage roads after breakfast. Jack has a video conference. The connection speed in the room is too slow for that. The folks at the front desk are letting him use a meeting room in the main building.

It's a hazy morning.

It's hazy to the south, anyway. To the north, the sky is clearing.

If you watch the Bar Harbor Cam live feed like I do, you'll sometimes see a rusty motorboat darting around the harbor. It appears to be the maritime equivalent of a maintenance truck. The sides are so rusty I'm amazed the thing still floats.

Right now it's coming across the bay from the south, carrying a ramp.

(I have my carriage road adventure; it's in the next post.)

The haze has dissipated. Now I can stalk the lighthouse again.

Zoom in.

Zoom in some more.

A little more.

Too much. It's gone fuzzy.

We're paying stupid money for this room because it has an ocean view. There's no way I'm not hanging out on the balcony with my camera. It's never the same view twice.