PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE
Leg 21. January 27, from Moffit's to the back side of Tip Toe and by the time I reached this precipice I was so warm I took my jacket off and tied it around my waist. Most of the shore looked like this and it was impossible to stay down next
to the water, below high tide.






When I rounded Crockett Point and headed north again, Reynolds' place, its boathouse and long dock, came into view. I was suddenly awash in memory, tenuous memory (like most of it nowadays) but I found myself eager to give it full flower and scrambled toward a big offshore ledge where I sensed I had some history. As I crested the rock I dimly recalled being here with my dad and Ken Webster, not today's Kenny but his father. I could nearly see him standing at the end of the dock tossing a line to me on the ledge. We'd have been hauling a float or maybe setting a mooring, late 50's or early 60's. Ken worked for my Dad around that time but he might also have been the Reynolds' caretaker. That specific recollection was attended by an abundance of vague familiarity, less particular but omnipresent.

After a while, a few minutes, it faded a little and a different incident was recalled, one unsanctioned but there it is nonetheless and it was typical of much of my youthful enterprise. Another kid and I were leaving this place, having been up to some mischief. We'd exited the driveway and were walking up the very rough dirt road leading back toward Tip Toe. Suddenly a big old Lincoln, a truly unlikely conveyance on this road, came careening through the 'canyon' I've photographed and talked about in the most recent postings. At the wheel was an older man, a notorious drinker and with him was his customary sidekick, no less accomplished. Each might have stepped fron 'Deliverance' and neither is still with us. Although it seemed pretty clear they regarded us as potential amusement, we foolishly accepted an offer of a ride back to town (I have no recollection of how we came to be here in the first place). Ten minutes later, ascending Mirch's Hill on the North Haven Road, having expressed some concern to our hosts about the direction in which this adventure seemed to be heading, we were given the option of jumping out of the still moving (not very fast) car and we took it. We re-gained our footing and, unhurt, had begun walking when we heard the Lincoln, which had continued up and over the hill, returning at high speed. As it crested the rise above us the passenger let go a blast in our direction from a shotgun he held in his right hand, the barrel of which bounced up and down on the car's right front fender. We both headed for the woods and ran for our lives as gunfire erupted in our wake, probably over our heads but we were not sure at the time.







It took a long time to navigate the western shore of Crockett Point. There are a lot of little islands and, because it was low tide, I could reach and therefore, of course, had to walk around each of them. Brown's head is in the distance.



This site reminded me of one of my favorite photographs, Peter Ralston's, of a submerged lobster trap in an area just like this, from which was broadcast a magic sparkle, as if Tinkerbelle were in residence. These shoals and ledges litter the area just offshore.












When I got to the head of a narrow fjord this little island, its rocky foundation a little more resilient than the surrounding terrain, stood stubbornly amidst marshy grassland. It's base is above high tide and it doesn't seem the little meander that runs down through the marsh could ever have mustered enough breadth or depth or force to have eroded all that away but clearly something did.




Looking back up the inlet, a little pond of fresh water is held in place by the residual stone wall some industrious person took many long hours to build a long time ago, perhaps to capture fresh water for livestock; the upland being some very appealing pasture.

Leg 21, during the first week of February, will at last get me around Brown's head.