The closest you'll get to a photo of me
25 September 2021
Jack belongs to an organization of academics and laypeople who are fans of Samuel Johnson. It's called The Johnsonians, and every September they have a gala that I call their Nerd Prom. It involves tuxedos and ball gowns and a fancy dinner. I went once, in a $15 dress, and decided that a banquet full of wealthy white men was not my thing. Covid cancelled last year's Nerd Prom, but they held it on Zoom this year.
We made sure to arrive in Bar Harbor with enough time for Jack to set up his laptop, find the wifi connection, and change into his tux. The proceedings were about to get underway as I put my little Canon camera in my pocket and headed out for a walk along the Shore Path by myself.
I started at the hotel, walked to the southern end of the path, followed it into town, walked towards the harbor, and then to the sand bar, reaching it as the sun was setting and the tide was coming in.
Between 5:10 and 6:59 p.m., I took 96 pictures. Here are most of them, because I want you to feel as if you were there too.
Evening fog is a regular thing on Frenchman Bay. I never get tired of photographing how it rolls over the Porcupine Islands and fills in the harbor. The Egg Rock lighthouse, dim and distant anyway, is the first thing to disappear.
Late fall flowers were blooming, and the beach rose had gone to fruit.
The Margaret Todd was setting out for her evening sail. From the shore, even I, with my bad ears, can hear the rhythmic scrape of the wooden sail supports moving up the masts as the sails are being raised.
The path takes a westward turn through a patch of woods and ends on Main Street.
I found a large, empty orb web in somebody's yard. If you zoom in and squint, you can almost see it here.
The setting sun turned the fog pink as I walked down the hill towards the harbor.
The difference between low and high tide is somewhere between 10 and 12 feet. At high tide, the sand bar connecting Bar Island to Mount Desert Island is under about 20 feet of water, with only a small strip of gravel one can stand on above the waterline.
I walked out onto what remained of the sand bar, past a couple standing nearby, and knelt to get an eye-level shot of a rock in the water. I had time for just one photo, as the tide reached my shoes in seconds.
From a safe distance, we watched the sand bar go under.
"How long do you think it'll take?" I asked the guy. "Five minutes," he guessed.
I zoomed in on the rock.
I was betting on less than five minutes.
It was closer to two.
When there was no more color in the sky, I walked back up to town and over to the pier. The moon was rising.
On the far end of the sand bar there is a stand of a handful of small trees.
The Margaret Todd had returned to her berth.
The Delight, Margaret's sister, was on her way in.
I zoomed in on the moon, no tripod.
Above Geddy's, a seafood restaurant I'll never enter (because seafood and no outdoor seating), is a LED moose.
I walked along the harbor end of the Shore Path, towards our hotel.
When I got back to the room, the Zoom call was over. What would have been a full night of revelry was over in an hour and a half.
We pay stupid money for a room facing the bay, so that I can roll out of bed, take pictures of the sunrise, and go right back to sleep. Our first morning here would be cloudy, so I could sleep in.
We woke to thick fog. I like thick fog.
The fog gave everything a soft focus.
Breakfast is included in the exorbitant price of the hotel. In these Covid times, everything is wrapped for grab-and-go. When we were here last spring, they'd even put whole fruits in sealed cups. At least they weren't doing that now, and the cereal dispensers were back.
The indoor seating area was open again, but we opted for an outside table by the pool instead.
Once in a while, the sun made it through the fog, but it never lasted more than a minute.
Droplets of water collected on the decorative grasses and flowers around the hotel.
I even found a large orb web, empty, and I vowed to come back at night to find out whose web it was.
I dug out my DSLR with the macro lens and set about taking pictures of wet flowers. The lens is much easier to use in daylight on things that don't move.
We decided to spend a few hours at the Asticou Azalea Garden, over on the Quiet Side of the island. That'll be the next blog post, whenever I get around to it.
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