Maine 2022 Part Eight: Sunrise, Fog, Sand Bar, Seawall, Bass Harbor Head, and the Return of Margaret Todd

In the heart of the Bar Harbor tourist trap 

4 July 2022

3 June 2022

Our last full day here starts off with fog.

There's a boat out there with a flashing white light. Can I time my shutter finger just right?

The sun gives a silvery glare to the east.

The fog is still going when we walk over to get breakfast.

I never get tired of this.

That's Tubby, putting floating docks into place.

I want to walk over to the sand bar. It's foggy and the tide is coming in. "Knock yourself out," is Jack's attitude.

Someone is opening the umbrellas at the hotel restaurant.

Tubby is putting Margaret Todd's dock in!

On my way to the sand bar, I pass the Lulu ticket office. With fog now and rain in the forecast, we're not even thinking about a lobster boat tour today. Sorry, Galen. Maybe next year.

A pair of blue-purple grafiti eyes peer out from behind weeds at the sand bar entrance.

Already, the incoming tide has cut off Bar Island from the mainland. I walk to the next lowest point, about halfway across the sand bar.

Those people over there'd better boogie.

I stand near the edge and watch the water come in.

Within a minute, it reaches my foot.

It covers sand that was exposed a few minutes ago.

While I'm standing here, a fellow approaches and asks about the tide. "I'm from Florida," he says, "where the tide is this big," and holds his hands a foot apart.

"This is going to be twenty feet under water," I tell him.

"Are you a local?"

"I wish." Then, "Nah. Just been here a bunch of times."

He saw the sunset from Cadillac last night. Shows me a picture. Dang. "There was nothing down here," I tell him. He hiked up the mountain, something I guess I'll never end up doing.

Two people are on the other side of the sand bar. We try to call to them. They don't hear us. Now the low point is under a few inches of water. It takes the people another few minutes to look back, at which poing they start to scurry. Approaching the gap, the woman takes off her shoes and wades across.

"That's the last time I listen to my son!"

The son is next, wading through six inches of water with his shoes on.

The Florida guy moves towards the mainland with them. I stick around, backing up a few feet as the tide comes in.

I don't stop taking pictures.

Now another person approaches, mystified by the tide, curious about how and when to get across to Bar Island. I explain the deal to him: Walk over when the tide is going out, get back while it's just starting to come in. He consults a tide chart on his phone. "I think it'll be low around 6 tonight," I tell him. I have a printed chart in the hotel room.

"Are you a local?" he asks.

"I wish."

We chat as we walk back to the entrance. He's been to Central Jersey. He thinks it's beautiful. 

I detour down to the touristy area near the pier. There are several tiny shops, none of which have ever been open when I've wandered by. 

This one seems to be a candy shop that promises to be open, but it's definitely not, from what I can see inside.

I walk back towards town through Stewman's Lobster Pound.

Tubby is still at work in the harbor.

More cairn action:

We try Stewman's for lunch, and its' a colossal mistake. The food has never been good; we go for the view. We start by sitting outside, even though rain threatens.

Rain it does, so we move inside. We get a different server, the first one having been sent home. Jack's sandwich is still frozen in parts. He takes one bite and pushes it away. They don't charge us for it, but we tip as if they had. 

I feel bad for Jack now. He's now officially bored and there's nothing I can do. I buy him a purple moose to cheer him up.

The rain moves out after a while. 

I suggest I drive to the southwest side of the island, to Seawall and Bass Harbor.

Part of Seawall is in the park. I know nothing about it. 

On one side is a marsh.

On the other, water.

"Do not remove rocks," the sign says.

Someone hasn't so much removed them as moved them:

The visit takes maybe ten minutes. We drive on, through Southwest Harbor. As we pass Dysart's Marina, I catch a glimpse of Margaret Todd's four masts. 

The Bass Harbor Head lighthouse is a new aquisition for Acadia National Park, and it's become so much of an attraction that there are now no-parking signs all over the lane that leads to the light. People live on this little road.

Jack accompanies me down the trail towards the shore.

A sign warns of dire consequences for anyone daring to walk off the trail.

The area is under restoration after people took it upon themselves to create unofficial paths.

When Jack sees the stairs, he turns around. His ankle will be having none of this. I go on down.

I have to wait for people to move out of my field of view.

Also, I've only been here twice, and both times have been on murky days.

If you go anywhere on Mount Desert Island, you will run into a photo of the Bass Harbor Head lighthouse that looks like this. Maybe it's in the winter, snow-covered. Or the sky is an impossible blue.

But, I mean, if you think Downeast Maine, this is what you think:

Could I live here? People live in the lighthouse now, restoring it, apparently. I don't know how to restore a lighthouse.

It's not as striking from the other side.

When we pass through Southwest Harbor again, I turn in to the marina. The Margaret Todd is gone. She must be on her way to her summer home in front of the Bar Harbor Inn.

We have dinner reservations at the Asticou Inn back over at Northeast Harbor. But for now we're hanging out in the hotel room.

I keep one eye on Frenchman Bay as I upload and label photos. Where's Margaret? Maybe we missed it. Maybe she's already here. I stop looking up so much.

And then, here she is.

I follow her with my camera until she disappears around the bend.

When we get back from dinner, I walk down to the dock. It's nearly pitch black, too dark for my camera, but my phone knows how to work around that. It even adds a halo to Bar Island.

Back on the hotel balcony, I count twenty-seven webs. There were two when we got here six nights ago. Like tourist season, spider season has begun on Mount Desert Island.