Leg 53, the westernmost of four eventual walks along the south shore of Winter harbor

Like last year at this time, all the water on the island is rushing to the sea. Every sleepy stream is awake and making itself known and the means available to them, the obstacles to their passage and the detours they've been compelled to choose combine to create every imaginable waterway.

All around this island, I've come across gulls engaged in a frenzy of feeding amidst schools of small fish. The gulls float over their prey and then, when they feel quite sure of themselves, flap their wings hard enough to get them just aloft, turn a kind of somersault and then plunge into the water like a missile. They bat about 500.

Leg 53 from the

Leg 52, the northeast half of Penobscot island.

Although I might have reached the island by trudging through the mud, I opted to kayak out to a point about midway on the southeast shore. It was a beautiful day for a paddle and my previous trek across the flats had about done me in. I reached the island about an hour before low tide and had no more than taken a couple of photos when my camera let me know I'd forgotted to charge my batteries. I was tempted to go back and return another day since I do enjoy documenting my progress but I'd come all this way -

I resigned myself to walking without photography. As I walked the tide receded and I found the going easier and easier till I rounded the tip of the island. There the shore was impassable and I had to bushwack through blowdowns and thick underbrush, often on my hands and knees. Eventually I rounded the second of the two northern peninsulas and found myself on an expansive sloping ledge in front of the only dwelling on the island. The cabin belongs to some acquaintances, beneffactors who gave most of this spectacular island to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, thereby preserving a huge tract of Vinalhaven's most remote areas. I lay down for a few minutes on the ledge looking straight out Winter harbor at Stonington. It was a stunningly beautiful vista and unusually warm. I lay there a while and reflected on their generosity.

By the time I reached the point where my previous walk had ended I was all in from having done so much buhswacking. Actually, I only thought I was all in because I then struck out across the island to emerge wide of my mark (the kayak) by about a mile and then had to do some real bushwacking to get back to my point of beginning. Then I was relly all in and there was no mistaking it. It's a puzzle to me how I got so lost with such a small opportunity. I probably don't want to reflect on it.