8/18 to 8/20 - New Harbor, Maine

The 150-mile four hour drive from NH to the Maine coast on Tuesday was all on pig paths (including US 1)……through little towns, a lot of narrow streets with stop signs and traffic lights……and a lot of twists and turns.  It was a visually interesting but otherwise very stressful drive, especially the part through the narrow and crowded town of Damariscotta/Newcastle.  (They run into each other with no indication as to where one ends and the other starts.)  We had just inches to spare on either side.  We did manage to hit a lot of international spots without ever leaving Maine……Norway, Poland, Paris, Lisbon and Bath.

Damariscotta River Bridge going into either Damariscotta, Newcastle or both.  Very uncomfortable place to be traveling with a big fifth wheel.

Our campground was lovely…..peaceful and quiet with spacious sites.  Quite the opposite from our last one near Mount Washington. 

Tuesday afternoon we drove the mile to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse so we could see the ocean.  It’s a beautiful spot with rock formations sloping down into the water and the lighthouse perched on a 40 foot cliff.  

We were saving our lighthouse visit for another day so I took this picture through the fence.  If I’d known what was going to happen to the weather on our next visit I would have walked over to the fence and got a clear picture right then, but I thought I’d have another opportunity later.

Jim has had a craving for ice cream lately and we happened upon a little place that had just what he wanted right next door to the lighthouse.  

The rocky shore sloping down into the water.  Interesting geology here where tectonic plates pushed together, folding and mashing rock layers into ridges.

Wednesday we drove up the coast a few miles to Round Pond.  On the way we stopped at the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve, a Nature Conservancy property named for the famous naturalist who did some of her research at this very pond.  A salt pond is an area that has enough of a barrier between it and the open ocean that a pond is left when the tide is out.  It has its own little ecosystem.  The water in it was very warm where I accidentally stepped in it.

Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve near New Harbor.

Corner of The Granite Hall Store with more ice cream for Jim!  We sat in the backyard with a view of part of Round Pond’s harbor.  

After the ice cream we drove down the shore road to see the shoreline houses.  All very nice and very expensive.  We met a lobsterman the next day who mentioned how the rich people along the shore don’t like them (meaning ordinary people like lobstermen) touching anything on their land even if it’s tree blow-down.  He was telling us about building an old-style lobster trap for which he needed a couple of branches of spruce and how he’d had to sneak onto someone’s property just to pick up a few branches from the ground. 

Our big event of the day on Tuesday, and the reason we specifically came to New Harbor, was the Puffin Watch boat trip which goes out to Eastern Egg Rock to (hopefully) see Atlantic puffins.  The puffin population has increased from zero to several hundred nesting pairs here since the start of the Audubon restoration project in 1973.  Looking for puffins this time of year is risky because it’s the end of the season and most have already gone back out to sea where they’ll be for the next eight months.  We were extremely lucky to see about a dozen puffins……Jim says it was either 12 puffins or the same 2 puffins six times.  Puffins were eradicated here by 1885 due to the over-hunting of birds and eggs.  Eastern and Western Egg Rock were named for the huge number of eggs laid there by seabirds which people would go out to gather.  Eastern Egg Rock is now the southernmost Atlantic puffin nesting site.

Our puffin watch tour boat.  The picture is from the Project Puffin website as I was unable to get a picture of the boat at the dock.

It was a beautiful evening for the trip but the sea was certainly not calm.  I’m not a good judge of the depth of swells but I’d estimate they were 3 or 4 feet.  In the 45 minutes we were out at the rock we saw puffins both in the water and flying.  They are small birds…..only ten inches long…..with black backs and wings so they aren’t easy to see.  Binoculars are a must, but trying to see a small black bird in a rolling sea with binoculars is not something I’d recommend and never plan to do again.  I’ve never come close to being seasick in my life, even crossing the Atlantic through a hurricane when I was a child, but I spent a very uncomfortable remainder of the trip concentrating on keeping my stomach and its contents where they belonged.  I quickly realized it was the binoculars that started the trouble so I quit using them.  There was no more up-close puffin-watching.  What with the binoculars and keeping my balance and other things, I completely forgot about taking pictures so have none of Egg Rock.  There’s no way I could have focused on a puffin quickly enough to get a picture.  I felt a little better about it when Jim said he also was queasy as he had a lot more experience on ships from being in the Marines.

Not being able to get my own picture of a puffin, I've borrowed one from the website of the Puffin Project (projectpuffin.audubon.org), the wonderful organization which has been working hard for 40+ years to get puffins re-established on Eastern Egg Rock.

I did get some good sunset shots coming back to New Harbor.

Coming back into the harbor with its lobster boats moored for the night.  New Harbor is very much a working harbor.

Looking back out to sea at sunset.

Thursday we went back to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.  They have a very interesting museum with a lot of information on the lobster business.  A retired lobsterman volunteers there so we got a lot of extra information.  He said he, unlike most Mainers, likes people and enjoys talking with them.  :D   So many pounds of lobster are taken every year it’s amazing there are any left.  The lobsterman claimed they take very good care of their lobster resources so they’ll never run out.  The legal size that can be taken is from 3 ¼ inches to 5 inches from eye socket to the tail joint.  Everything bigger and smaller has to be thrown back.  But if Maine harvests 127 million pounds a year of only 3 ¼ to 5 inches, how can there be enough lobsters left in that size bracket to get past the 5 inch limit to permanent safety?  I should have asked him how fast they grow.

Pemaquid Point from the top of the lighthouse.  It’s not a very big lighthouse…..only 38 feet high…..but on top of its 40 foot cliff it stands out very well.  

Just to prove we made it to the top.  It wasn’t the height that was the problem, it was the extremely steep and narrow steps with a seven-step ladder at the top.  Jim almost couldn’t squeeze through the opening.

In the afternoon we visited Colonial Pemaquid and got a good look at the harbor.

Pemaquid Harbor has mainly pleasure boats with very few working boats.

Some of Pemaquid Harbor’s expensive houses.

The reconstructed bastion of Fort William Henry at Colonial Pemaquid.  This area’s European history dates back to the early 1600’s.  English vs Indian conflicts with a smattering of French thrown in.  This fort has had three incarnations, none of which ever did much good. 

I couldn’t get this post uploaded before we left Pemaquid so I’m doing it at Bar Harbor.  This campground has wifi but it’s very erratic.  So far it’s been up only a few seconds at a time.  At least our hotspot is finally working.

Today (Friday) was another nerve-wracking drive with lots of traffic.  We’ve been told the parking situation around the Bar Harbor area is very bad so we’ll try to use the shuttle buses to get around for the next four days.