Island Circumambulation

2012-01-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Leg 63 & 64, from Arey's Cove to Round Neck on Pogus Point. These walks are not nearly as intriguing as most others and I don't expect the next several to be either. I'm in much more densely populated territory and so encounter people and pets whereas until now nearly every leg has been quite solitary. Neither have I found the shore as interesting. It's not the largely pristine waterfront I've been traversing. After I get around Pogus Point, which will be beautiful I know and will trigger some great memories, the perimeter that has guided nearly every step of my walk will become more circumspect. I will need to tramp across lawns and over docks so will probably avoid them as a courtesy and detour around. I won't find wilderness again till I'm in Carver's pond and then not for long.

2011-11-10T17:14:00.000-08:00

Leg 62 from Fish House cove south, around Arey neck and up to the head of Arey Cove.

Often, in October, deer hunters station themselves at stategic points along the shore in anticipation of a deer, being 'run' by a companion, crashing out of the woods into their sights. They don't often welcome me as, at those expectant moments, I come stumbling around the bend.

If I'd come during a big tide (with a corresponding extra low) I'd have been able to make it out to Greer (actually Green) Island. As it was I might have made it. The water was about a foot and a half deep, cold though.

I passed a house my dad built around the time I was in the service. It's an unusual house, designed by the artitect owner, flat roof, no conventional framing, unusual materials. He enjoyed it though. It's settled very nicely into its surroundings which is, I'm sure, what the owner had in mind. He and his wife still summer there and have settled equally well into the fabric of this community.

I'm moving, for the first time since I began in '09' into the settlement that is Vinalhaven and walking along the shore may now and then intrude on someone's privacy. I'll try to keep that in mind. I've photographed, but not exhibited here, every dwelling that's been visible from the shore. I'll stop doing that as I get nearer the village.

On the shore I found the remains of, I'm told by a learned aquaintance, a Minke Whale.

Next leg, 63, from Arey Cove to Narrows Island or thereabouts.

2011-11-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Leg 61, south from Smith harbor, around Barley Hill and Calderwood Point and into Fish House Cove.

This was a comparatively easy walk as have been the last two, lots of big flat rocks or boulders, very little mud, plenty of barnacles to cement each foot hold and lots of opportunity to enjoy the extraordinary beauty that is the east side and all that lies beyond it. Today was perfect, quite windy out of the north northwest and thus plenty of sea pounding the ledges all around me, cool temperatures so no matter how I pushed I didn't overheat and bright sunshine illuminating everything around me and brimstone, Saddleback Light and Islle a Haut beyond.

It had everything too, bold ledges being pounded relentlessly and a tiny secluded white sand beach in the lee.

The fresh water run off through this little clam flat eroded all but certain elements within the mud but only in this center trickle, not in those on either side. These more sturdy fragments stood erect amidst the little wash like soldiers on parade.

A boathouse foundation?

Next Leg (62) toward and round Arey Neck.

2011-10-30T10:15:00.001-07:00

Leg 60 from midway down the east side of Coombs neck south, around Brown's and Stoddard islands and to the head of Smith Harbor. This was certainly as beautiful if not more so as any vista I've encountered so far. I sat and leaned against a boulder and gzed out at Isle A haut, twice in fact, an unheard of respite.

The rock contined to amaze me, as they have all along this eastern shore of Coombs Neck. Stunning volcanic formation are everywhere.

As the waves rolled in and receded they exposed this cluster of kelp that, at first glance, and even the second and third, seemed like a flock of seabirds bobbing up from bottom feeding.

Not to be outdone by Kirk's scat photos I took one of my own.

That's my pocket knife there in this enormous footprint. I left it in the photo so the viewer might better appreciate the size of who or whatever made it.

Browns and Stoddards islands are georgous little environments, the latter Vinalhaven's easternmost low tide extensions.

next Leg (61) headed for State Beach.

Leg 60

2011-10-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Leg 59, from the north end and about half way down the east side of Coombs Neck.

I've been looking forward to this vantage and it was worth waiting for. Last March Elaine and I waited here on some high land for the perigee moon and were not disappointed when, closer to the earth than at any time since 1993, it rose in breath-taking beauty over Isle A Haut. Photos of today's walk are decieving. It looks like tough going but, while the one that preceeded it, around Bluff Head, surely was, this was a pretty laid back trek. The rock formations were unlike any I'd seen elsewhere around the island but they were big and presented lots of flat surfaces to land on.

Evidence of volcanic activity has been everywhere since I began this walk two years ago but these on Coombs Neck are much more obvious and speak more dramatically to the phenominon of instant transformation, mid-swirl, from a boiling liquid to solid rock.

I plan on bringing a geologist friend to this spot to explain this vertical layering of different minerals

Here, where the rocks are exposed to a particular pattern of wind and wave, the rocks are tumbled smooth like those on Brimstone and the boulders among them have been carressed so sensuously for so long that if one of them rolled over and stretched it wouldn't be all that surprising.

Next walk, leg 60, on down the east side of Coombs neck, perhaps around Brown and Stoddert islands (depends on the tide), to Smith Harbor.

2011-09-22T06:03:00.001-07:00

Leg 58, from the head of Philbrook's Haul-out north along the western shore of Coombs Neck then out to and around Neck Island and Bluff head.

We had favorite spots, parking places truth be known, when I was a teenager. This idyllic place was our Coombs neck destination back in the fifties and sixties. Under this beautiful oak we'd sit, listening to rock n roll on WMEX from Saugus, Mass., drinking beer or whaterver we could get our hands on, smoking Camels or Lucky Strikes and wondering at the stoic resistance of whatever young lady we'd persuaded to come along.

Bluff Head is nearly 100 feet high. A modest fall from its easternmost shore, while admiring my first unobstructed view of both Stonington and Isle a Haut, cost me my glasses and a couple of sore shins.

I'd been warned not to wait too long if I intended to venture out to Neck Island and Bluff head because the tide was likely to cut off my return. As it happens the incoming was about a foot deep when I got back and I waded through it back to Coombs Neck.

Next leg, 59 will take me down the western shore of Coombs neck but, given the opportunity to explore offshore islands, probably not all the way to Smith Harbor.

2011-09-12T17:33:00.001-07:00

Leg 57, from the east side of Smith Cove around to Philbrook's haul out, a deep cove that cuts all the way to the road just as it makes the turn to the far reaches of Coomb's neck. This was a messy walk, lots of mud and many tumbles into it. 'Slip Sliding Away' never found a more appropriate venue. By the time I got back to my truck I had to spread trash can liners all over the seat to avoid soiling the cab permanently. It really was the first unpleasant walk I've had during the entire two years that have lapsed since I began. In some places the shore, even where it deceptively spawned grass and reeds, was nothing but muck underneath and it was often impossible to stay upright. I was exhausted when I got back. Im looking forward to the next leg which will take me around the endo fo Coomb's neck and give me my first unfettered look at the eastern Bay and Isle A haut.

2011-07-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Leg 56 continuing around Smith Cove and heading toward
Coombs Neck. This walk took me by several memorable places. The Poor Farm, which housed our few indigent during the 1800's and early 1900's was just winding down operations about the time I was getting my feet on the ground. The place was clearly haunted and for all the right reasons. Folks whose lives had been, to one degree or another, miserable were lingering, determined to share some of that unhappiness with those of us who came along after them. My friends and I were certainly accommodating, tormenting those sorry spirits no less than they terrified us as we forced our way in through broken windows and jimmied doors to wander the halls and dark recesses of this big abandoned residence scaring the living hell out of one another.

I have no memory of what the Stone Farm was before I was a kid but during my early summers it was home to Fanya Stone and her three children, two beautiful and beguiling girls and their brother. They were from New York City and each summer returned from their island to their genuine island cape here on ours to swap a little of their sophistication for our more rudimentary experience. Their family and ours remained very close for years and the girls still stay in touch and return to the island now and then although the farm, still known as the Stone Farm, is now home to an equally engaging personality.

A swing around the eastern shore of Smith Cove revealed a clearing high above that is the end of what used to be an old wood road. My generation regularly navigated that path to this spot to drink beer or make out or both and to litter the place with the remains. Our disregard for our own surroundings was so far removed from the concern most of us feel today it's hard to believe the contrast too place within one lifetime.

2011-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Leg 55, continuing easterly along the southern shore of Winter Harbor around the peninsula and into Smith Cove.

This was an easy walk, just a beautiful day, one sweet vista after another but nothing particularly dramatic. I stumbled upon an acquaintence working on a summer home, making some improvements before they arrived for the season. In all the time I've been walking this is the first time I've come across someone face to face. This walk took me into Smith Cove which means I've only got two or three more walks before I'll be around Comb's neck and on the East side. I'm looking forward to that because it will be completely different. The exposure is not like anthing I've walked before. The lobstermen who I'll see working that side of the island will not be those I've seen along my walk so far. The view will be of Isle a Haut and Saddleback light and, eventually, Brimstone and those out islands.

2011-06-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Leg 54, further along the southern shore of Winter harbor, around Burnt island and beyond, heading toward Smith Cove.

This continues to be an exciting and interesting adventure. This sourthern shore of Winter harbor is less dramatic than some of what I've encountered but it's certainly no less beautiful. On this day, during the last week in May, pollen was washing ashore everywhere making it look like gallons of yellow paint had been spilled nearby.

Leg 54

2011-05-06T17:25:00.001-07:00

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

2011-05-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-03-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

Leg 51, the southwest half of Penobscot Island.

I thought there'd be too much muck to struggle through getting from Vinalhaven's shore out to Penobscot Island so I took a kayak and launched myself from a place oppositte the island's mid-point.

It was an hour or so before low tide and just enough water in which to paddle which I did with some apprehension, thinking all the while how much shallower it was likely to be when I was ready to return. My plan was to walk southwest to the island's extremity and around it's northern shore then cut across the island at a place I judged to be opposite where I'd begun.

Thoughout this exercise I've been amazed by the mussel beds, by the size of them. This one stretches out toward the Carrying Place. A coon, too far off to be photographed but finding itself amidst such plenty instead labored away in the mud for a clam. Coming around the northern shore I got a look at Starbaord Rock from a vantage i'd never enjoyed before and tried to pick out the initials my grandfather carved there expressing his devotion to my grandmother.

Here, inexplicably, the mussel shells are carefully scupted to from a ridge elevated way above its surroundings as if forces moved on it from all directions equally.

The island's streams are busy discharging snow melt. Some, like this one, are very small and have been doing business in one place for so long they leave a rusty footprint.

A gathering of Perriwinkles gathered cooperatively that they might more readily hear the featured speaker.

My fears were well founded. Returning, I pushed the kayak halfway across before finally finding enough water to support it and, even then getting aboard from a 'stuck in the mud' vantage is nearly impossible. I was a mess when I got home.

2011-03-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

Leg 50, from the Trotting Park to Penosbcot Island, March 9, 2011

A few years ago this walk wouldn't have taken so long but now, after the miscalulations that resulted in the installation of the enormous culvert at the Boondoggle Bridge and the consequential flooding of the Vinal Cove inlet, the shore is twice as long. Where there were once woods, there are now these skeletal remains.

Spring is surely on its way. These brooks that were so recently cold and quiet now appear eager to get on with business and there certainly is a lot of business for them to be about. It won't be long now, though. The ice has been treacherous in one sense, trying to stay upright. On the other hand, there's been much less slogging through the mud. That will be my reality again before long.

The ice formations are smaller but certainly no less beautiful.

I'm looking forward to walking around Penobscot island, leg 51. i should be able to get out there this week. it might be an overnight trip or it might just be a good excuse for such a thing. I think I can get across at low tide. If not, maybe I'll go over by kayak.

2011-02-25T14:52:00.001-08:00

Leg 49, from Vinal Falls to the Trotting Park

For twenty six years, ever since we rented a houseboat on Lake Erie, I have been fixated on the little lagoon that forms between this little island and the east shore of Vinal Falls inlet, just off Leo Lane's camp. Every time I drive by and look out there at that spot I remind whoever is with me that I'd like to put a houseboat there. Some have heard that enough. I should just do it.

Walking south I cover a lot of shore that parallels the North Haven Road. It's sometimes a few hundred feet between the two, often much less and has always been thus. Still it's all new to me. I see summer houses I never knew existed. How can that be? Just offshore is Penobscot Island. I think I can walk out there on ice cakes at low tide. I'm looking foreard to it.

It didn't look like Spring underfoot and it wasn't apparent that the snow was doing anything but piling up but it certainly sounded otherwise. This brook and others like it were fully occupied and the primary source was melting snow.

The Boondoggle Culvert invited me to crawl through but I thought better of it, too deep, and went up and over. I shed my vest and hat and left them on the bridge. I'd been struggling to stay upright and, while avoided falling overboard had overheated.

It was easy going out on the Inlet which was nearly empty of water but covered with a fairly level field of ice. I walked comfortably, hatless and without a coat even though it was way below freezing.

These streams, draining the wetland between the Trotting Park and Carver's Pond, were as busy as the one's I'd come across in the woods but all the action was under the ice.

The great Boondoggle orchestrated by the Corps of Engineers
has swallowed up a lot of shoreland. Healthy trees that once were a barrier between homes on Vinal Cove Inlet and the water are now skeletal sticks. Still, some argue persuasively that the goal of re-creating an environment where a good exchange of water tiwce has made for better conditions overall.

Next Let, #50, from the Trotting park to Penobscot Island.

2011-02-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

Leg 48, from the mouth of the Privilege to Vinal Falls.

I was eager to get off Calderwood Neck, not because I didn't enjoy it; I certainly did, but because there are spots along this journey that feel like milestones, important junctures. The first was Brown's Head when, as I rounded the point, Dogfish & the White Islands disappeared, not to be seen again for another year or so, and North Haven came into view.

The next was Hopkins Point because it marked the end of the Thorofare proper.

The third was the Carrying Place Bridge simply because it meant I was leaving Vinalhaven Island for a while. The fourth was Calderwood Point and the emergence of the beautiful seascape that introduces Stonington.

Starboard Rock was the fifth just because it is what it is and the last was the Carrying Place Bridge again because it marked my return to Vinalhaven Island. Of course the bridge was a heartbreaking disappointment on this, its southern side, just as its northern facade was such a shock a few months ago. The thought that we could have done such a thing to this invaluable piece of craftsmanship is, if nothing else, a reminder that we must be mindful of what remains of our heritage going forward.

The Ospreys are still maintaining the home they built for themselves decades ago at the top of the derrick at the old Vinal Quarry. A leftover piece of machinery gives their homestead a nicely landscaped look.

I took a couple of exciting falls along here, sliding down an ice covered ledge and into a couple feet of cold water. I always go when the tide is nearly low but still receding. Tht gives my rescuers the maximum time to retrieve my remains if I get seriously fetched up along the way.

This will be a familliar vehicle to some of us.

Next leg,, 49, from Vinal Falls to that place where Vinalhaven comes closest to being divided in two by water- the Old Trotting Park.

2011-01-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Leg 47 from Starboard Rock, into, around and out of the Privilege. This inlet is considerable both in size and in beauty. An old skeleton beckoned me in. Much of the first half hour or so was conducted in the woods above the shore, it being problematic getting down to the water but before I reached the head of the cove I got down close to low water. The cove's being iced over nearly completely made for slippery going. On the other hand it allowed me to avoid the mud flats.

The area on the east side, near the entrance is littered with huge boulders, much bigger than I've encountered elsewhere and, I assume, have been calved off Starboard Rock and its attendant peninsula.

The accummulation of ice and snow is everywhere divided precisely by the high tide mark which has dissolved some or all of it during the interlude when it lingered at that level.

There are some very cozy berths up here at the head of the cove and at the head of it's little westerly branch, really appealing spots that were, particularly in the west branch, about as far away as one can get from what passes, out here, for hussle and bussle.

Near the entrance is an expansive mussel bed, bigger than any I've come across since the one at thead of Perry Creek. It's a beautiful colony, wide and with sweeping curves defining the areas where here, at low tide, it's boundaries meet the sea. I stood and watched for a while as those edges changed with the advancing tide. It reminded me of an Eric Hopkins painting that had taken on a little life.

Next leg, 48, will leave Calderwood Neck behind.

2011-01-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

Leg 46 from Grossville, around Starboard Rock to the Privledge

This beautiful little island, has become a graveyard of discarded wire traps.

Of course I don't mean Vinalhaven but this little island north of Starboard Rock.

After today Stonington will be behind me for a while. Each view of it though, first from Calderwood Point, then all the way around the Neck from Thayer Point, has been tantalizing, like a glimpse of another kingdom.

A certain granite outcrop, unlike those adjacent in either direction, appeared to have been folded into itself, like merangue.
T
A little spruce found enough nourishment in a little clump of soil to take root and, once that was a reality, there wasn't much to be done but to make the best of it.

Getting around the base of Starboard Rock wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. High up on this rock my grandfather Ted Maddox carved his initials and those of my grandmother, Phyllis. He pointed it out to me once but now I can't be sure.

I don't know how to manage the way this blog aligns text and pictures. I put text where I want it then, when I post it, the blog puts stuff where it wants to. I hope the reader can figure things out.

Everything that's rock, anywhere in this vicinity, is big. In other places, where rocks have sheared off, boulders have come tumbling down. All around Starboard Rock, particularly to landward, these are enormous.

Turning the corner here, having put Starboard Rock behind me, I felt as if I'd made another landmark. Certainly that will be the case after I've emerged from the Privledge and come back to the Carrying Place Bridge. Calderwood Neck, its perimeter, was a delicious experience

I might have sat here to rest, maybe in the Spring.

Next Leg, 47, in and out of the Privledge.

2011-01-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

Leg 45, from the Ritz to Grossville.

This wasn't a very long walk, a lot of scrambling up to snow covered woods to get around steep ledges or rocks covered with snow and ice. Still, it was no less beautiful. Each glimpse across the bay to Stonington during these last few walks has been just stunning. I didn't photograph that image; it didn't seem to arrange itself in a way that worked for the camera but it was certainly beautiful to the eye.

When I ended my last leg the tide had come in too far for me to get to Little Island, just in front of the Ritz but this time it was low enough to let me get across the little bar and walk around it. From its far side I got an ubstructed look at the larlger of the Hen Islands.

Looking southwest down the length of Winter Harbor with Penobscot Island on the left and the rest of Calderwood neck on the right I could see the point at which, later this month I'll turn south into Vinal Cove.

When came around the bend and was about to conclude my previous walk I surprised a couple of coons working on something in the distance. I had a chance to examine the area more closely as I started today and could see it was a popular dining spot. Ledges, equally appealing I think, are on either side of this one but all the leftovers, bones and shells, are on this one.

There are several apple trees, remnants of a little orchard, in the woods on this point. I wonder if they were included in the recent inventory conducted by the Historical Society.

Next leg, onward to Starboard Rock

2010-12-18T07:27:00.001-08:00

Leg 44, from Eastholm to the Ritz. The great adventure enters its second winter.

Rock formations along this coast are unlike those anywhere else on the island. In one area colorful undulating formations emerge from smooth pebble beaches and around the next bend

big jagged pieces from nearby cliffs litter the shore

Just offshore, my two daughters, then about ten and fifteen, and I paddled out from the south shore of Winter harbor to one of the Hen Islands and spent the night in a tent perched high on the rocks overlooking Penobscot Island. In the morning I cooked scrambled eggs, home fires and kielbasa.

About thirty years ago I made the acquaintance of Phil Boster. At the time he owned the Ritz. He was a great guy. He's buried nearby under a stone that identifies him as 'Keeper of the Cove'.

Next leg, 45, from the Ritz to Starboard Rock, maybe into the Priviledge.

Leg 44, from Eastholm to the Ritz. The great adventure enters its second winter. Rock formations along this coast are unlike those anywhere else on the island. In one area colorful undulating formations emerge from the smooth pebble beaches and around the next bend big jagged pieces hewn from the nearby cliffs litter the shore. Just off shore, high up on a ledge on one of the Hen Islands my daughters and I spent a memorable night camping.

2010-12-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

Leg 43, from Carl Ames' Farm to Eastholm.

I was looking forward to this walk like no other. This was really remote territory to me. I'd never spent any time whatever at this extremity of Calderwood Neck and I was looking forward to rounding Thayer Point and discovering a shore I'd only seen from the water and only once or twice in my lifetime.

The shore just around Thayer Point was stunning, just rocks and ledges but in such magnificent arrangements.

Standing on this outcrop of stone so completely worn that its edges were like razors, I had to zoom in to the area beneath my feet to try and capture the degree to which this extraordinary erosion had taken place. Looking down the beach a way the same feathery formation emerges from the rubble.

This fellow seems to have built on a pretty solid foundation.

Next leg, 44, from Eastholm toward Starboard Rock. I hope to be off the Neck by the end of the year.

2010-11-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

Leg 42, from Polly cove to the old Carl Ames Farm

The characteristics of this northwest facing shore of Polly's Cove are a little different than the opposit east facing shore and, as I proceed farther east, toward Thayer Point, it is markedly so.

This white sand beach was a stunning surprise. How could I have lived here all my life and not known?

It's right in front of a private residence so access is limited but still - it's certainly been here as long as I have. What have I been doing with my life?

Calderwood Neck, all of Vinalhaven for that matter is criss-crossed with old stone walls. Fields needed to be cleared of rocks while animals and pasture land had to be segregated so it made sense to build walls. Now and then though, there were just too many rocks, more than needed to build walls. Here they were just thrown over the edge.

There are more and more interesting rock formation and mineral deposits as I continue east on this shore. A little research leads me to think these white streaks may be deposits of feldspar crystals, a product of volcanic eruptions but I have friends who are geologists and who will correct me if necessary.

This is the area in front of the property formely known as Carl Ame's Farm. When I was very young the Farm was the landing strip for the old Harjula Flying Service. I haven't included a photo of the house, in keeping with my promise to keep such photos out of the blog but the field slopes pretty severely up toward the house and barn. The arriving plane generally approached in that direction, uphill, so the landing was very short. Likewise the take-off, travelling downhill and taking advantage of extra lift, was also shorter than might otherwise be the case. I can remember coming in here on a plane but I'm sure I was very young.

Next walk, leg 43, from Carl Ame's Farm to Eastholm.

2010-11-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

Leg 41, from Clam Cove to the head of Polly's Cove, November, 2010

It's hunting season. I must of been uncharacteristically quiet biking to my starting point. As I dismounted a flash of orange in the woods ahead alerted me to a hunter down on one knee taking aim across the cove. In a few minutes he wandered northerly away from me having not fired the shot I'd expected to hear.

I don't know what set of circumstances results in some Vinalhaven shores being so markedly different from others. It's tempting to say, in the case of this east shore of Carver's Cove with it's unobstructed exposure to the northeast that the winds make a difference and they certainly do. On the other hand, wind alone cannot account for the extremes of jagged rock. On the Thorofare, for example the same conditions are found on the north and west shores.

Here, at the head of Polly's Cove, the village of Stonington can be easily seen in the distance. When I was a kid Polly's Cove was a populat place to undertake 'shutting off' for herring. I lived in the Bucket, a legendary homestead down by the old ballground, during the fifties. Alfred Hall lived across the street. He was a very gentle soul, older than my own father. He and his brothers shut off Polly's cove regularly. I think they owned land at the head of the Cove. Now and then my family and his camped there. I remember a tent platform from which we looked straight out to Stonington.

Here, as at the head of every cove on the island, there's a brook and here, after a big rainfall and at the base of a quick change in elevation that comprises most of the Eleanot Campbell Preserve, it was running with great enthusiasm.

Next leg, 42, from Polly's Cove to the Carl Ames Farm.

2010-11-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Leg 40, from Birch Point to Clam Cove.

This is the only of my many walks during which I was accompanied. The Island Institute has asked me to write a circumambulation article for the Island journal (2011) and Peter Ralston tagged along to photograph me in my element, as it were.

Here, looking out toward Stonington and Widow's Island, I built a house for a summer couple I came to know and think a great deal of. Their architect called the house he designed for them a 'clamdigger's shack' but it was a very comfortable and practical one story cape. I was happy with it. Eventually they bought Widow Island and I did some work on the residence out there.

Eventually, too, they gave a big chunk of land to Acadia National Park.

On the highest point sits two of the three original water towers that served the half dozen residences on Calderwood Point back in the early 1900's. I hadn't been on this shore for ten years or so.

Back then I was impressed with the particularly tenacious oaks in residence. They'd selected the singularly most inhospitable spots on an equally unlikely shore to put down roots. I cut a trail for the owner over this land, from one end to the other, by the water towers and through this conclave of Oakes back to Clam Cove. During this walk the Oakes were no less determined but the old guard was clearly in decline.

Unlike nearly all the others, this Oak, with a very comfortable exposure, well protected from the northeast and prevailing winds, had retained all its fall foliage

I have to keep reminding myself to look up, at the treetop environment. Often, its worth it.

Next leg, this weekend perhaps, from Clam Cove back to Polly Cove, then out toward East holm.

2010-11-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

Leg 39, from Shipwreck Cove and on to round Calderwood Point.

Calderwood Point is the northernmost of Calderwood Neck's numerous peninsulas. It's nearly an island unto itself but the isthmus that allows it to cling to the rest of the Neck at Clam and Shipwreck Coves is always dry, if just barely. Long ago someone exercised further division and imposed some confusion by naming the Point's westernmost finger Zeke's Point and the northern protrusion Birch Point.

At Zeke's Point I came to that place where Vinalhaven and North Haven, at Iron Point, are in closest proximity.

Here, in Birch Cove, where Zeke's transitions to Calderwood Point, is an unusually designed summer home belonging to folks who've become very good friends. Over the last twenty years or so I've re-built nearly all of it and added a guest house.

The granite piers for the steam boat wharf, built in the late 1800's to accommodate the Governor Bodwell as it made its way back and forth through the Thorofare to and from Boston and Bar Harbor, still stand just offshore from the summer residence that occupies the northern most tip of Birch Point and thus, practically speaking, although Calderwood Neck is actually a seperate island, the northernmost tip of Vinalhaven.

Rounding the point I had my last look at North Haven village and my first of the Eastern Thorofare, its guardian Goose Rock Lighthouse and, in the distance, Stonington. Just behind the lighthous is Stimpson's Island where I and my crew spent nearly two years engaged in rebuilding several residences back in the 70's.

It being connected at low tide, I walked around Birch Island stopping to take in Widow's Island, where I'd doen some work restoring the old residence there years ago. The island had once housed a sanitorium for folks suffering from smallpox.

This vacant spot was the birthplace of my wife Elaine's waterfront studio. We own a tiny sliver of land on the shore of Sand's Cove. When the owner of a sweet little building that had stood on this spot complained of its suffering year after year at the hands of folks who, during the off season, used it a little roughly, he offered it to me if I could move it. I had some friends with a barge mounted crane pluck it off the shore around 1990 and bring it down to Vinalhaven. During the long ride they set up a little bar inside, had a little string quartet playing all the while and rounded Norton's Point into Carver's Harbor on the 4th of July to the tune of 'Ain't Gonna Need This House No Longer' and in a markedly merry frame of mind. The next day they lifted it into position three feet from the edge of our wharf and it remains Elaine's createive workspace and refuge to this day.

Next leg, from this northernmost spot back to Clam Cove.

2010-10-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

Leg 38, from the head of the Swimming Pool to Shipwreck Cove, the south shore of Calderwood Point.

Looking out toward the dam and the Thorofare beyond it's easy to sea why, back in the mid 1990's, this was such a poular spot. when I'd last paid any real attention to it, around 1960, it sported a big float with a diving board and lot of sporting folks, summer people mostly and mostly from North Haven. The water, contained as it was there in the shallow cove, was much warmer than the ocean. Quickly, though, the Swimming Pool lost its appeal, succumbing to miore exciting past times. The float and bath houses rotted away and the waterworks began to deteriorate.

The particular purpose of constructing the dam in this way, with the wood retaining wall down the middle was explained in detail to me when I work there. Sadly, I wasn't paying attention.

I passed another house I'd built fifteen years ago or so, a big one to replace an even larger summer home that had been destroyed by fire. The fire was rumored to have been started by drug enforcement agents trying to keep themselves warm as they scanned the waters below for traffickers. It had an eliptical arch and was a real head scratcher.

There's a staggering quantity of flotsham along this shore but not much other indication of human traffic, an appealing place for an Osprey or Eagle to homestead however and there are several of those.

Having intended to photograph only what I see during the walk around the shore I couldn't resist this old giant on the Zeke's Point Road. I've monitored its transition over the thirty years or so I've worked out on Calderwood Point.

2010-10-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Leg 37, from Birger Youngquist's former residence to the head of the'Swimming Pool' 10-04-10

The tide has made its way in and around, creating its own paths of least resistance, for so long that little environs have evolved in its path, places where nourishment is sure to be found by one creature or plant or another. In areas where the incoming tide, just as it turns, pushes its front waves into tiny watercourses, lush clusters of things are found, populations that peusumably benefit from the concentration of goodies, delivery of which can be relied upon so regularly.

The reverse is true too; the little channels that reveal themselves at low tide bringing fresh water from the uplands, before they become the conduit for the incoming tides, bring a different diversity to the same perfectly situated inhabitants.

The oaks certainly do like a challenge. They can be found up in the woods, where they might be more comfortable, but give them an impossible place to grow and they seize upon it. There are areas around the shore where they just flourish. This area in particular, part of the west shore of Mill River, is
certainly one.

When I was in high school my dad was hired to restore the wood portion, including the sluiceway, of the old dam here at the Swimmming Pool. The Swimming Pool was, I think, owned or perhaps leased by the North Haven Casino and around 1960 they made a real effort to restore not only the facilities here but also the interest in using it as a recreation area for its members. It had been thus ealier in the century but interest was, as I recall, waning. They hired Dad to not only rebuild the dam but to build two bathouses, one for men and one for the ladies, one on the north shore and one on the south and a float or two. I remember one had a diving board. He did the work asked of him but the hoped for revitalization fizzled. During this work all that remained of the bath houses were the eight concrete posts upon which each once stood.

2010-09-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Leg 36 from the head of Jennings Cove to Birger Youngquist's old place.

As I rounded the point at Stetson's I heard voices. Oddly, this was the first time in fifty or so walks, that I'd encountered another human being. I thought perhaps I'd interrupted a caretaker and crew hauling a float for the winter. Instead I came upon a big fibre glass whaler, high and dry, having motored in on the coming tide hours earlier and now abandoned by the receding water. Nearby were two clammers, busily engaged in the exhausting work of raking through the mud in search of steamers, gathering all they could during the five or six hours provided them, loading hod after hod into the boat. I walked around the perimeter of the cove without them seeing me. There were no niceties involved in this business, neither in the things they had to say to one another as they worked. Still, if this were the only thing left for me to do to provide for myself and my family, I wonder how long I'd last. More were around the next bend but this time the boat was not in view and they were wading through knee deep water raking what appeared to be only the water in search of I what, I could not tell. And then, as if I had not had enough of people, I rounded the final bend and came upon someone poling their dinghy (it was that shallow) out to a mooring and then heading up the River in a motorboat for North Haven. Altogether this was seven people, seven more than I'd encounted in nearly a year.

Whien I was a kid this was a common sight, dories full of nets waiting for the herring and the tide that would allow them to shut off the cove for harvest. Those though, were beautiful things, wooden, often lapstrake. These are huge fiber glass industrial things. Still this was a photogenic assemblage.

This was an early morning walk. I'd earlier warned a certain summer resident, staying late, that I'd probably be emerging in his front yard around 9am and came up from the shore looking directly into his bedroom at 8:58. The shades were all drawn back and revealed that he certainly hadn't taken me seriously. I quickly re-directed my gaze, oopting not to take a photo, and headed upland for my bike which I'/d stashed earlier next to his driveway but some distance from the house.

2010-09-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Leg 35, from the head of Jennings Cove and around the several little islands that, at low tide, comprise Jennings Island.

The cove and island that bear Livingston Jenning's name are all part of the windfall that resulted from his prudent purchase of the land between here and the Carrying Place Bridge. I don't recall what they were called before he acquired this land but do know they hence became known by his name and that info has found its way onto the relevant charts of the area.

I've seen this green fungus on the tidal flats elsewhere but not in such profusion. There's quite a contrast, particularly at this time, when the fading color of summer color transitions into fall, between it and the surrounding grey rock and clamflats.

This was my first walk since May 10, when the demands of approaching summer put an end to what had been one or two outings a week. During the intervening months I'd forgotton about needed protection and I simply struck out in the shorts and sandals I'd been wearing for months, a big mistake. The flats filled the sandals with broken shells and debris and when I tried to escape to the juniper festooned ledges above, my legs were torn to shreds, well not shreds exactly - that was Elaine's term when, after I returned home and hosed off in the yard, she viewed the damage.

Here at this very low tide I again enjoyed the luminescent mussel shoals I'd seen earlier at Perry Creek. It was late afternoon and the setting sun was providing just the right light to show them at their best advantage. Greys, blues, purples: mud, water and shells were very complimentary to one another.

2010-05-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Leg 34, from the head of Mill Pond on Calderwood Neck around Boy Scout Point, to Jennings Cove.

During this early morning walk and the one preceeding it, in this one stretch of shore from the Carrying Place Bridge to Jenning Cove, I passed four houses my dad built, one he and I built and three I built myself. I remember when Livingston Jennings bought this land, all of it from a local fellow who probably thought he got a pretty good deal but then Liv divided up the narrow shoreline between the Carrying Place and the head of Mill Pond into one and two acre lots and the land on Boy Scout Point and beyond to where Stetson's is now into ten acre lots and put them all on the market. At the time my grandfather was a real estate salesman for the Allen Agency and Grant Duell was representing Cousins. Between the two of them and, a little later when I took over from my grandfather, me all the lots were sold. Jennings did pretty well for himself and in the process managed to get a heretofore unnamed offshore island and a cove offically named for himself.

A pair of Ospreys, probably in the committed sense, entertained me for a long while just off Boy Scout Point as they engaged in the remarkable aerials that allow them to prowl from aloft for prey far beneath them in the shallows of low tide. During my ten or fifteen minutes of observation they apparently didn't seen anything worth diving for but expended a lot of energy in the process.

I've often seen apple trees during my walk. Now and then one seems interesting enough to go up and investigate. This was one of those. They are nearly all lovely, rambling old artifacts, now and then exceptionally beautiful.

Next leg, when I get an hour or two will be from Jennings Cove to the area where Berger & Doris Youngquist once lived.

2010-05-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

LEG 33, FROM CARRYING PLACE BRIDGE TO THE HEAD OF MILL POND, CALDERWOOD NECK, MAY 7, 2010

My last walk terminated at the Carrying Place Bridge, terminated along with much hope that we or any of our descendants will ever again see the beauty that was that artifact, its surface having been obliterated but a pathetic 'restoration' undertaken by Knowles Industrial Services of Gorham, Maine. Calls to them have not been returned. I'm not surprised.

During this modest walk, perhaps an hour and a half, I passed three houses built by my dad, one we both built and a fifth by me, memories at every juncture.

Throughout this long exercise I've come across inexplicable concentrations of one kind or another. Early on it was accummulations of mussel shells but only in certain areas, then colonies of barnacles, again only in certain places. In each case there seemed no good reason why these should not have gathered just as easily in adjacent spots. Lichen are another good example. Certain species, with specific exposures, happily segregated from others. These black lichen are very enthusiatic about the west shore in this area of Mill River.

The Mill Pond was another and particularly desirable old mill site. The narrows are so constricted that they could easily be traversed by a hanging pedestrian bridge the remains of which are still in place as is some of the machinery. I can remember going back and forth here, hand over hand, as a kid.

There was a good chance for this little spruce to gather a little nourishment from an area just to its left. Instead, it stubbornly sent out a tendril across the entire dry face of this boulder to reach

a little soil elsewhere, probably a better neighborhood.

With summer and attendant deadlines coming on it's hard to find time to continue. Until fall, it may be only once every week or two. The next leg, later in May, will be from the Head of Mill Pond to Jenkins Cove.

2010-04-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Leg 32, from the old Kulka Farm to the Carrying Place Bridge, 23 April, 2010

Phots are zoomable.

This was the least interesting of all my walks so far. Although I could look across Mill River at the many houses and cottages my dad or I or he and I together built over the last sixty years not much else caught my eye.

The ever present animal trail aligned itself with this companionable backdrop as it meandered along the shore.

I've gone on about firths recently and with good reason. They are as significant a geological feature of the island as the granite itself, evidence of surface water making its timeless way to the sea. Each, too, has seen man's efforts to rein in that inexorable march, to corral the fresh water or keep the salt at bay. Their purpose may be clearer to island historians. In each case, however, the more relentless of the two has prevailed, the water relentlesssly washing away or circumventingefforts to forestall.

A pair of raccoons made their way across the flats, nearly to Boy Scout Point a little earlier, when the tide was way out. Every now and then there's a pause in the tracks, evidence of a little activity, discarded shells.

It was very discouraging to come around the point and see the Carrying Place Bridge from the water. An engineering firm was recently contracted with to make repairs to this granite bridge, one of only seven island bridges each painstakingly crafted from island granite. I'm not sure what strutural repairs were made to make the bridge more sound but a fiber reinforced concrete coating has been sprayed across the entire surface obliteriating all that history and all that effort. It may be that the coating, the industrial equivilant of Brickbond, gives the bridge more strength, will perhaps help it to stand up under ever heavier machinery making its way up Calderwood Neck for residential development but it has certainly not done anything for the aesthetic appeal of this historic monument to Vinalhaven's industrious past. Six bridges left.

Next leg, #33, from the Carrying Place Bridge to Mill Pond.

2010-04-14T16:45:00.001-07:00

PHOTO ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 31, from Holt Point to the old Kulka farm, April 11, 2010

Blackflies. It seems a little early but there's no mistaking them.

The little peninsula that is home to the Holt place is configured in such a way as to offer the house views in every direction. Straight ahead to North Haven, east to Calderwood Neck, south all the way down Mill River and west to the other side of Seal Cove. It's quite a spot and another that holds particular memories.

When I was in high school, I answered an ad asking for a seasonal handyman out in this area. The gracious but naive summer lady to whom I reported for an interview found me satisfactory, hired me on the spot and ran me through my responsibilities, mowing the lawn, a little painting, bailing out boats, that sort of thing but then she added that I'd be expected to go into town every day for the mail and supplies and I was to use 'the Jeep' on those occasions. That was really exciting since the 46 Willys was a sweet ride in mint condition and particularly since I had no license, not even a permit. As an added bonus she said there was beer in the spare fridge in the entry and I was to help myself whenever I felt the need to refresh myself. She really had no sense that I was as young as I was; had she only not assigned me the task of re-finishing the hull of her prized North Haven Dinghy I'd have been sitting pretty that summer but once I'd gone to work on the hull with a disc sander and a handful of #36 discs my shortlived career was over.

At the entrance to Dyer's Pond, one of the smallest of Vinalhaven's ten or so significant firths, is the remains of an old mill site. Wherever there are rapids, the Basin, Crockett River, Mill pond, Carver's Pond, Old Harbor Pond, Mill Creek and here at Dyers Pond there will almost surely be evidence of an effort having been made to harness the power. Some were more successful than others.

In nearly all these places too the upland was salt marsh and the remains of dams in these areas reflect efforts to either hold the incoming tides at bay to protect the grassland for pasture perhaps or to retain the fresh water that inevitably feeds each of these inland waterways.

Next leg, this weekend, from the Kulka farm to Carrying Place Bridge, then on to Calderwood Neck.

2010-04-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

PHOTOS SHOULD BE CLICKED FOR BETTER VIEWING

Leg 30, April 3, from Stepping Stone Brook to and around Holt Point.

Stepping Stone Brook meanders through a long salt march before finally reaching the estuary this side of the Mill Creek Bridge. It's worn a deep gully in the clay. Halfway to the bridge is the remains, like those in similar areas on the island, of a makeshift dam, an effort to hold water back or maybe to keep the coming tide at bay. This is a large area to dam off, much larger than those found elsewhere, and it appears to have been abandoned before it was completed. It now serves as a cafeteria of sorts for racoons and birds feeding on shellfish they've dismembered on the rocks.

Vinalhaven is the same size as Manhattan and each island has seven bridges. Here's one of ours.
It's not as busy as the Brooklyn Bridge but both were constructed using Vinalhaven granite.

Allthough its been my practice to only photograph what I could see from the shore, I knew this area to be home to a great symbiotic relationship and so I walked up the road a way to photograph it.

Dr. Marion Loizeaux was a physician in the Second World War. For decades she kept a little camp next to the Mill Creek Bridge and spent as much of each summer there as she could. That the little cottage had no conveniences and was served by an outhouse didn't trouble this formidable lady a bit, even as she advanced into old age. For years Dr. Loizeaux was an instituion on Vinalhaven. She never ceased to express her gratitude for the island and for her little place on it. Now that I've lingered there I can certainly understand. It's a pristine oasis of natural beauty; even the bridge and the little camp seem to have been there since creation and the prospect of falling asleep, to the ambient sounds of the water flowing in and out of the Creek, was very appealing. Although I've photographed every structure or utility building visible from my walk, I have made it a point not to publish the photos on this blog, fearing, perhaps, an invasion of privacy. This is an exception. I know Wazzy wouldn't mind.

Carnivore

The ubiquitious animal trail I've written about in earlier blogs wound its way through a colorful carpet of moss just next to the creek. The critters seem to select the best routes.

When I was a kid one of the eight girls in my class lived out here on Holt's Point at the Mills Farm. I came out once or twice to play as a youngster but those oppportunities faded as I got older and became more of a handful and a nemisis of sorts to her father, who served on the school board. Betty was the smartest kid in our class of 16 as I recall. The farm was very well kept, still is, and is home to several carefully constructed and lovingly maintained stone walls. Again I ventured up from the shore to showcase on of them.

Elaine bought me a pair of nice L L Bean walking shoes. I promised to take good care of them.

Looking ahead to the next leg, from Holt Point to somewhere around the former Kulka place, opposite a little spot identified on the map as Mt. Ephraim Island. I'm looking forward to seeing what that can possibly be.

2010-03-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

PHOTOS SHOULD BE CLICKED ON FOR BETTER VIEWING

Leg 29, March 27, 2010, from Murch's Brook to Stepping Stone Brook

A week into spring and there remain ample reminders that this is Maine and we shouldn't rely too heavily on the calendar.

All sorts of interesting areas coinciding with the dead low tide of today's walk presented themselves. Tidal pools in particular seemed to have assembled their components to showcase their considerable beauty for the several hours available till the tide comes back in and rearranges things.

It seems there's a brook at nearly every turn, each brimming with the residuals of last week's big rain and continuing snow melt and each stuggling to still put in a respectable appearance when it's meandering finally leads to the receiving waters of Seal Cove or Mill Creek.

The sound of this one beckoned so beseechingly that I clambered over all manner of debris to get to it. As you can see it was worth it.

A couple of inland 'motions' and the debris from nearby quarrying were evident along the way. This one, found wanting I guess and abandoned, is right at the water's edge.

As I rounded the peninsula and headed down Mill Creek the extreme shallows gave off an entirely different color, shades of green and, with the sun head on at about due south, a luminous intensity. The same distinction attached to the wading waters on the other side of the Mill Creek Bridge.

Eight or ten firths can be found along Vinalhaven's coast. These narrow penetrations, some fairly modest like Mill Creek, others more imposing like Long Cove or Crockett Cove contrast with broader estuaries like Carver's Pond and the Basin.

Throughout this walk I've been surprised, astonished really, not simply by the beauty of my surroundings but by the humbling realization that I have been here for over sixty years and never taken the time to see it before. It seems ridiculous now to think, for example, of how often I've driven over the Mill Creek bridge and wondered what the rest of the Creek was like.

Stepping Stone Brook is probably always busy discharging, as it does, overflow from the two mile long watershed that includes Round Pond and, farther south, Folly and Otter Ponds.

Next adventure: Stepping Stone Brook to Holt Point.

2010-03-12T03:16:00.001-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 28 from the Bluff at Smith Point to Murch's smelt brook, March 10, 2010

A slice of Vinalhaven Diabase, so described by Olcutt Gates' comprehensive Geology Map, protrudes from the shore at low tide just a few feet from the distinctively different geology of the Seal Cove Formation which begins around the next bend. The map tells me each was deposited around 400 million years ago. It's the kind of information that I just can't do anything with, can't imagine or process, like the particulars of the universe.

I'm out of Perry's Creek and was in no hurry to be thus. Although I've lived her nearly all my life I've really only seen and appreciated it twice, during this walk and during a canoe excursion a few years ago. It's a sanctuary of absorbing beauty and one we will have to enjoy in perpetuity thanks to the generosity of several thoughtful benefactors and to the perserverance of the Vinalhaven Land Trust.

Two substantial brooks empty into Seal Cove from the west. Gully Brook carries rainwater and snow melt from the area around Fox Rocks. I've seen it roaring in the past, often washing out the A. W. Smith Road, but today, with snow melt in decline, it was fairly modest, very unlike Murch's Brook where this walk ends.

Oakes and Cedars seem determined to forego the more secure higher ground for the very edge of the shore, determined to cling there to a foothold. This one is so near the water it had dipped in to retrieve a little seaweed.

At the head of Seal Cove, just before I followed Murch's Brook up to the road I turned to look at the Cove's eastern shore, the next leg, just beyond this tide pool and this unusual arrangements of boulders.

Murch's Brook, emptying the big wetland between Seal Cove and Long Cove was not wanting for material and, in contrast to Gully Brook, was putting on its best face.

The next leg will not be till the end of the month since I am off now to ambulate around another island for a while - England!

2010-03-07T06:08:00.001-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 27, March 6, from Perry's Creek smelt brook to the Bluff at Smith Point.

The low wetland that feeds the Creek and becomes the smelt brook here is several acres of striking beauty and, although appearing dormant now in early March, will be a very busy place shortly. The marsh descends here, to the east, from its very modest high point near the North Haven Road but from there also sends some traffic in the other direction, west to Crockett's Cove.

I took up the walk where I left off last, at the very head of Perry's Creek and headed east along the southern shore, under outcrop whose upper few feet have succumbed more slowly to erosion than the area down at the water line. Only a few hundred feet from the first smelt brook is a second, Indian Ladder, fed from Fox Rocks to the south. Within a few hundred feet then are two substantial streams, one a steady, languid and meandering flow carrying huge quantities of detritus from the west to the tidal critters below and and the other, fed from high rocky elevations to the south, comes careening down during times of snow melt, like now, and rainfall.

The shoreline along the western half of this side of the Creek is all layered deposits. My very cursory research tells me it's Vinalhaven Rhyolite, deposited over 400 million years ago but who knows what my geology friend, the Glacial Eratic, will say. The layers are of different sized material and some of these and some entire compositions are obviously more resistant to erosion than others. The result is striking - deep recesses, caves or protrusions like this one with its very unlikely tree cap. Efforts to erode it
have been abandoned but the assault continues unabated all around and behind it.

At this very low tide I could have walked nearly the entire length of the Creek on just mussel beds.

Next leg, 28, sometime this week from Smith Point to another smelt brook, Murch's in Seal Cove.

2010-02-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 26, Feb 22, 2010, the north shore of Perry's Creek from Lamson's to the smelt brook.

More memories here but not as relentless as those accompanying the last two walks. I had moments, a few, betwen recollections for idle thought.

This was the longest walk yet. I was a little optimistic in thinking I could cover the entire north shore of the Creek in as much time as I'd allotted and still be observant.

As I've already mentioned, my Dad used to do all the work at Saltonstall's, often under the direction of their devoted caretaker, Danny Pendleton of North Haven. Danny was memorably stoic and dry and wonderful company. Each fall involved towing their floats around Hopkins Point and putting them away here in a place we called the nursery, a supremely sheltered area tucked in the east
side of Orchard Cove, where several caretakers in the area put away their charges for the winter. Paths from this area lead back through the woods to the several nearby estates and throughout the winter those responsible come down here to check on things.

A little color is certainly in stark contrast to everything else at this time of year. I spotted this juniper from quite a distance.

A gift of land in 1986 on Perry's Creek from the Saltonstall and Byrd families to honor their parents, Senator Leverett and Alice Saltonstall, was a prime impetus for the formation, that year, of the Vinalhaven Land Trust. Since then, the Land Trust has acquired all the land on the north shore of Perry's Creek and now maintains an enchanting system of trails that weave throughout the area connecting one exquisite place with another.

The ever present animal tail continues along the shore. I'd promised in an earlier posting to include a photo of it in each entry but the trail, although always there, doesn't always lend itself to being photographed. It's very apparent from the ground however.

Approaching the deep recesses of Orchard Cove I heard the crows. They weren't making the usual sounds, the caws I associate with them, more like chuckling. When I rounded the bend I saw about fifty gathered on the flats near. I've never seen that many in one place. From my distant vantage I couldn't tell whether they were feeding. It wasn't apparent however; it looked more like a lodge meeting. I took a picture but the distance was too great to gain any resolution. Eventually my movement caught their attention and they flew off, first about half, then, as I came a little closer, the remaining birds. They lit in the nearby trees and for the next hour and a half, accompanied me, flying sorties from one wooded or open waterfront area to another, as I walked up the Creek.

Looking back out toward the entrance and Calderwood Neck beyond.

This smelt brook, emerging from a substantial wetland just above, was the most popular of the half dozen or so brooks we frequented as kids. Indian Ladder, a little farther south in this same Creek, was nearly as productive. Smelting was a great activity. A friend lived just above the Creek in DyerVille, a tiny enclave on the North Haven Road and it was only a ten minute walk from there through the woods to get down to the brook. Next to his house was an abandoned building we'd turned into a sort of clubhouse and we'd often fuel up there for an evening at the brook and return there again to spend the night.

The next walk, leg 27, will take me from the brook along the south shore of Perry's Creek and out to Smith Point, later this week.

2010-02-21T03:10:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE
Leg 25, Merrill Poor's Brook to Lamson's at Hopkins Point, Feb 18, 2010.

This was the first walk undertaken in falling snow, not much snow but falling continually and gently. It was also begun early, before 7, without much light and didn't lend itself very well, for the first hour or so, to photography.

I drove to Saltonstall's and left my truck there thinking that was as far as I'd get, and biked back to where Merrill Poor used to live. As it happens I got all the way around Hopkins Point and had to walk back to my bike from Lamson's. Like the leg just preceding it, what I met along the way were memories, every few feet it seemed.

As soon as I stepped on to the shore, I found myself at this stream and thought of the great smelting adventures friends and I had undertaken in the late 50's and early 60's. This, if not this one then another very nearby, was not the most productive of the smelt brooks but it was one we visited often. That may have had a lot less to do with smelt than it did with Merrill & Kay's beautiful daughters. At high tide the smelt would have found navigation a little easier than this little fish ladder presenting itself at low tide.

The area covered on this walk was not as naturally interesting as most of what I'd seen since beginning this venture, one big summer place after another in the section of town we used to call the Gold Coast. Only a few were new to me. My father and I had worked on nearly all of them and he'd had been the resident carpenter for decades at Jim Reynolds, Muriel Lewis's, Leverett Saltonstall's and others and had built a new home there between Lewis's and Saltonstall's for Muriel's daughter Eleanor Campbell and her family. A few years ago Eleanor gifted the Vinalhaven Land Trust with the Poly Cover Preserve on Calderwood Neck. As has become my practice, I've not posted the photographs of homes along the way (although I've photographed every one) concerned that some might think that an intrusion but this little cottage, certainly not typical, but shrouded as it is by all that menacing fauna, seemed a suitable subject. Clearly something is going on in there.

Durng the years I worked with my Dad on these places I came to know and grow fond of many of the summer residents. Although they were certainly understood to be wealthly, it wasn't obvious except for their island holdings. These folks were generally not pretentious nor did they seem to feel they were entitled to anything in particular other than honest service from the many residents from both islands who depended so entirely on them. Of course they depended equally on those islanders and generally each treated the other with genuine respect and thoughfulness. Now and then that allegiance was a little thin and my memory is that more often than not, not always, it was an islander, usually a caretaker, who broke the bond, perhaps presuming too much. Wonderfully outragious stories of these indescretions abound but I'll have to give them careful thought before committing any to paper. Many of these relationships, though, lasted for years, sometimes generations and the caretakers were often treated as part of the families, attending weddings and funerals and enjoying the generosity and consideration of their benefactors.

The lightly falling snow was just dusting over the deer tracks along the ever present animal trail near the shore and it was apparent that these critters had just preceded me by a half hour or so. Suddenly at this juncture where I found the perfect right angle, the tracks of a bigger deer, it's tracks were half again as large as the others, came into this path from inland and continued ahead of me. Althought the snow continued to fall there wasn't a single flake in these tracks, so fresh were they and so near at hand was this creature. I never did see him but he and I followed the same path all the way to the end of Hopkins Point and once or twice I think I heard him crashing through the underbrush ahead.

I was making repairs at Jim Reynolds in the early sixties and was under an outside deck on my back looking up through a hole left by having removed some rotted fir decking. Suddenly a face, curious about what I was doing, appeared above me. I recognized him as a regular guest of Louis Rukeyser's on Wall Street Week and told him so. He talked to me for a while and told me how much fun it was to be a regular on that show.

We we arrived at Saltonstall's one late summer for our annual meeting with the senior Senator from Massachsusetts, he presented us with a list of projects he'd like completed that winter. Wonderfully frugal, this gentle and appealing soul presented us with an old coffee can full of nails, discarded fasteners he'd collected over time. Among the projects to be undertaken was to gently 'nail' back the wallpaper in the upstairs hallway, paper that had succumbed over the years to the rigors of warm summers and cold bleak winters and the unforgiving contrast between the two.

Smith Point is defined by Perry's Creek to the west and Seal Cove to the east and southeast and rounding Hopkins Point I had a nice view of the two houses I built there, one few years ago, the other in 08. From one of these, The Bluff, the owner and the happy guests he entertains there each summer have admired the eagles nest barely visible from that vantage, on Mouse Island. I got a little closer on this walk and it is indeed an idyllic location, right in the top of a tree and perfectly accessible but just below the tops of all the sourrounding trees, giving it a little privacy.

Leg 26, this week sometime, will take me down Perry's Creek, certainly one of the most beautiful places on the island, maybe anywhere and much of which has come under the protection of the Vinalhaven Land Trust.

2010-02-10T03:22:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 24, Friday, February 12, 2010
(Fish head to Merrill Poor's)

Early on in this blog, leg 17, I came upon a big rock that appeared to burst from the beach beneath, to challenge me to go further. I researched a little and thought the area to be largely variagated shale. Subsequently a friend and frequent critic, I call her the Glacial Erratic, informed me that there is no variagated shale on Vinalhaven, certainly not in that area. Consequently I researched it further and revised that earlier entry to describe the rock as the denizon of bimodal intrusions. I now know, with certainty, there are no bimodal intrusions in that area either and, in spite of being attracted to the term, have edited it further to quantify the stone as sedimentary shale.

This litter I can applaud. Beginning here at Fish Head and at virtually every old (Harding's, Harrower's, Kingsbury's, St. Laurent's, Iselin's & Terry's) summer place along the way, the shore bears unabashed witness to sewage disposal past and present, to attitudes then and now. The cast iron pipes that once poured and in some instances (where the dispensing end of the pipe was propped up on a ledge) flung effluent disdainfully to our fellow critters remain, cause for reflection and for rejoicing, but they've been there long enough; time to go, so to speak.

A friend who summers in the grand house just above this precipice, having learned of my walk, warned me not to climb over this 'rotten rock'. Indeed all the ledge encountered during today's walk was similarly rotten, parts of it, softer and less resistant to the relentless elements, giving way more readily than other marginally more durable rock. The result is deep cave like intrusions all along the shore.

Certainly there was a seal sunning itself on this little oasis just before I came around the corner. How could it have been otherwise?

I've found lovely little mussel shell beaches here and there. This, at Young's Point, is larger than most and a beautiful example. When I was a kid Ox & Ellen Kingsbury, as gracious a couple as I've ever known, summered in their little cottage above and to the left and shared this beautiful spot with the creature whose place adourned the ledge marker. Many years ago, when the Kingsbury's felt they were getting too old to manage it any longer, I was their real estate agent and sold it for them. I think it was the first six figure (a very low six figure) sale on Vinalhaven, laughable now. I got out of the real estate business just as it was beginning to become profitable.

I'm purposely not showing photos of the homes along the way, although I've photogaphed every dwelling without exception, that privacy might be preserved.

The former Harrower house, which is on today's route and which fell victim to an arsonist on a really sad day in the 60's or 70's, holds many memories as do all the homes along this shorefront. My Dad did all the carpentry for the Harrowers, Hardings (Fish Head) and Kingsbury's and some at many of the others. I remember working there with him and his crew when I was in high school. Among them were Bud Carter, Harold Lee Anderson and Paul Chilles. Paul was newly married to my cousin Lauretta who always packed him a lunch larger than he could eat. Ever helpful, I ate what he was afraid to take home unconsumed. My father had lusted for years after an abandoned skiff the Harrowers had stored under their guest house but he knew it was worth something and couldn't afford it and he was certainly too proper to ask without being prepared to pay for it. One day Bud Carter noticed it. Within minutes he'd found Norm Harrower and asked if he could have it. Norm gave it to him immediately.

One hot summer day, probably exacerbated by my having just snuck a cigarette, I stole a drink from a coke bottle I assumed belonged to one of the crew but it was used motor oil, drained from the lawn mower by the caretaker.

The Hardings had kids the same age as my brother Dick and I. During several summers we spent a night or two there at Fish Head after playing with them all day on that magnificent property.

Dad built the Harding's dock in four truss sections of two rails each and had them towed up here by boat, probably in the 60's. Each rail was framed on a big Douglas Fir timber, 6 x 14 I think, about 40 feet long. I remember him adjusting the threaded rod connecting the upper and lower components of each assembled truss to take the spring out of the timber and give it a little crown so it would more readily support traffic once it spanned the granite piers. On a particularly high tide a couple of us stood in a skiff at one end of the assemblage and hoisted it up to be supported by the granite piers, then did the same with the other end and to each of the eight sections. Later, in a truly astonishing exercise that would have had my mother beside herself, her husband and first born (and others of the crew) righted the trusses, installed the outriggers that would serve as permanent bracing and completed the construction.

Next leg, #25 from Merrill Poor's to Hopkins Point, next week sometime.

2010-02-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Progress is outlined in pink

Leg 23, from Brown's Head Light to Fish Head

This leg was the coldest walk yet. Snow and ice prevailed and bitter wind and I tried to take some comfort from the presence of flowers. Of course it was Flowers', as in the huge new estate on North Haven belonging to Cris Flowers and not a Crocus underfoot

Clearly I am finally on the Thorofare and the North Haven Ferry kindly posed for me in front of the Sugarloaf Ledge for this shot.

I stopped at Brown's Head Cemetery to say hi to my Mom and Dad. This is their marker. I had to tell them I was about to re-visit Real Calderwood's Beach, a place that held so many memories from my early childhood and that of my brothers and a place I don't think I've been back to for maybe forty years.

This is it, Real Calderwood Beach (loosely coined). When I was a kid this was THE place for family picnics. My first swim in salt water took place right here. My folks brought along the tent, as was usually the case, and set it up on the bluff above. I can remember a little campfire and enjoying hot dogs and hamburgers and marshmellows after our (my brothers and I and my folks who always joined us in the water) refreshing dip in the Thorofare and falling to sleep after games and stories to the sound of the water lapping at the rocks just beneath our campsite. The whole community regarded this as the community campground. Often ours was not the only noisy encampment.

The walking is getting a little easier here on the west facing shore, fewer formitable ledges and more rock beaches.

Some color! Not spring exactly, not blossoms but an interesting and appealing composition nonetheless.

Leg 24 should get me up toward the ferry landing and then, after one more leg. I'll be in the more sheltered inland waterways in Perry Creek and beyond.

Next leg, 24 should get me to

2010-02-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

My progress is outlined in pink

Leg 22

No, this does not mean Brian Meehan has just stepped into the woods to adjust his riding breeches.

I drive my truck to where I expect to end my walk, ride my bike to the the starting point (where I left off the time before) and, when I'm done, drive back and get the bike.

I've run into these formations here and there along my route this winter.

This is the first one that's been close enough to the shore to have it's bangs trimmed by the tide.

I can't be faithful to Circumambulation unless I walk every foot of shoreline and not cut short exploration of a fjord until the waterway has become narrow enough for me to step over it.

I recently flew over New York City and Washington D.C. Standing here admiring Brown's Head Lighthouse, in spite of there being no apparent connection, I found myself thinking about the staggering amount of humanity and achievement I'd seen from 30,000 feet, the product of such inquiry and enterprise. I thought about having undertaken this long walk and what I'd done with my life and was struck by how much less achievement would be apparent from that altitute if, since the beginning of time, the greatest inquiring mind had been my own. A fleeting moment of sobering assessment, that's all.

Leg 23, perhaps this weekend, from Brown's Head to Fish Head.

2010-01-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-01-23T05:29:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE Leg 20

I've navigated this beautiful passage at Big Tip Toe twice now during this exercise and will do so once more before I complete my
tour around Crockett Point. I never tire of it. Fifty years ago I was involved in a ridiculous car chase through this pristine gully. I'm grateful for this opportunity to appreciate the spot a little more fully and certainly a little more responsibly.

I've been looking at Dogfish for some time now, from one vantage or another, ever since I left the Basin. I'll get a glimpse of it over my shoulder when I round Brown's Head but this is my last view of it's entirety.

Having turned my back on Dogfish and the last of Leadbetter Narrows I enjoyed my first unfettered mainland panorama and a look at Crabtree point and the narrow piece of real estate that is North Haven's southern extremity. By February North Haven will be my constant companion for a while.

It was suggested, before I struck out for walk # 20 that I might want to take snow shoes, certainly something mositure resistant. I stubbornly stuck to my sneakers. A couple of hours later, having failed to find reliable footing, or any footing for that matter, in places like this below the high tide mark, I found myself struggling mightly through big snow drifts high above but right next to the shore. By the time this leg of my journey was over I found myself
thinking seriously, again, about taking Elaine's advice to heart.

The wind was howling out of the north and when I rounded the point it blew my hat off and nearly toppled me from a ledge. I ducked down into this little nook, lingered a while out of the wind and found, in this singular little environ all the things found elsewhere nearby but each was a little different -barnacles, mussels, even seaweed looked a little less careworn, having found this relatively sheltered place to live.

These deer wallows remain a mystery. I'd only seen one before this and it was on the south side of the old Moffit place in full view of the front of the house. This, the next one, was encountered after coming around Crockett Point and back to the road. It is on the north side of the same house, again in full view of it. I haven't seen any big ones like this in the privacy of the woods.

Leg 21, next week, will get me into the nooks and crannies behind Brown's Head.

2010-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

I began leg 19 on the shore of Whitmore Pond just opposite the juncture of Brown's Head Light and Crockett River Roads and headed south along the western shore of Crockett Cove. Before leaving the Pond I climbed to this little bluff at the northern end of the VLT trail to look back up the cove. From this same spot Elaine and I watched an anxious deer, who'd spotted us and had no where else to go, swim across to the western shore a few years ago.

This was an early morning walk and the sun was so bright from across the cove it was blinding to even look in that direction making it easy to concentrate on where I was going. This was my first look at Tip Toe Mountain just after rounding the little peninsula at the entrance to Whitmore Pond. The owners of this little spit of land just below the mountain have made the most of its charms without compromising its integrity.

The little mountain looked somewhat more formidable once I'd come abreast of it and I thought it might be necessary to forego sticking to the shore and walk on up to the road to travel around. When I got up to it though I could see a foothold here and there and so stayed down near the water. I alluded in an earlier entry, when I first saw Tip Toe after walking through Leadbetter Narrows, to having dimly recalled a romantic interlude on the mountain. The object of those interests has since come forward to edit my recollection, reminding me that if there was anything romantic about my inclinations that night it certainly escaped her. At any rate we are each content with the outcome.

There were places, beyond Tip Toe, where it was impossible to stay below the high tide mark and I had to climb up to find the ever present animal trail. The westerly shore had taken a real pounding in recent storms and blow downs were across the path everywhere making it necessary to crawl under or over fallen one fallen Spruce after another. I can't imagine how they manage it but the deer tracks lead right through the jumble of trunks and branches. Theirs is certainly a tougher hide than my own. Here the trail, uncharacteristically clear of debris, leads by the beginnings of a treehouse, albeit the builders were not looking for much altitude. Perhaps it was a fort to monitor the comings and goings in the narrows leading into Crockett Cove.

A last look back up Crockett River taken from the end of a long dock belonging to someone I know I know but can't remember.

Of all the secluded places along the way where deer might have rolled around on the ground for a good back scratch I can't imagine why they chose this place in full view of several homes. Maybe they knew they were seasonal.

I left my bike at the far end of Crockett's Point and biked back out over this icy road. I had told Elaine I thought this could be done safely. In fact it could not and ultimately I only pedalled along little patches of exposed dirt or over crusty snow but one near miss on the ice convinced me that (for once) she was right and I walked the bike along those stretches from that point on. Passing through the gut at Big Tip Toe I turned around to look back at these ice formations.

Next week I'll round Crockett Point and get my first look at Crabtree Point on North Haven. May by week's end I'll be on the Thorofare

2010-01-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE

Leg 18, from Elisofon's to Tip Toe Mountain, took me to a place I've always intended to visit but have not, Whitmore Pond and the deep inner reaches of Crockett's Cove. That I have not can be said, though, of pretty much everywhere I've been during this walk and while it's taken me sixty years to get around to it I'm supremely glad I eventually did.

Two sets of rapids allow the tide to come to and drain from the marshy upland area. This is the innermost of those.

A pastel rainbow drips from this little ledge as a miniature glacier advances toward the precipice. Now and then a speck of dirt is carried away until, over time, well - you know.

Ice in all its forms is ever present, underfoot, overhead and in beautiful displays like this.

I was prompted to take this picture to bring home and compare, with Elaine, it to the condition of my own hair more often than not but when I saw it framed on the upload it was strikingly beautiful (not that it doesn't still remind each of us of my own condition now and then).

I'll try to get a photo, each trip, of the ever present animal trail. It's nearly continuous, all around the island perimeter, sometimes just inside the woods, other times, like this, where the going is easier but always there where other species have trod before and are probably bringing up the rear.

Approaching the most pronounced of the several headwaters of Crockett's River, I find the stream has certainly settled into a course it was familar with. As I got nearer the roar ahead signalled a significant waterfall. It was, rather, a piece of equipment being used at the substation, just beyond the trees.

The marsh is ribboned with these gullies, some so narrow the grass folds deceivingly over them but many several feet deep, inviting a mis-step. This, heading back from the headwaters is one of the two or three more significant and seems ancient.

Heading back out of the marsh and southwesterly exiting Crockett's River, I stopped to admire this ice covered ledge that had the appearance of an over-filled container, merinque perhaps, or ice cream.

Leg 19, next week sometime, should take me by Tip Toe and around Crockett's Point toward Brown's Head.

2010-01-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never. Shakespeare

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE.

Leg 17 took me from Rhinelander's (now Lowry/Rodrigez) to Elisofon's yesterday, January 5, at mid morning. Although the Crockett River Road was ice covered I took my bike figuring if Brian Meehan can ride around all winter so can I. I left it near the Elisofon driveway and drove the mile or so down the peninsula to Rhinelander's. I'd planned this walk at low tide thinking all the snow we had recently would make walking along the upper shore and, when necessary, through the woods, more difficult.
As soon as I stepped out of the deep snow and onto the shore I encountered this fellow, denizen of the bimodal intrusions, heaving himself up from the everlasting fires to urge me on.

The sedimentary rock, fractured virtually every few inches and covered with seaweed, made it difficult to keep my eyes on the views, one perfect vista after another. This, of Rockland and the Camden Hills is between Dogfish Island and Crockett Point. The Drunkard monument is just visible beyond the latter. Every step taken while looking at this instead of at my feet was a mistep.

Having learned to identify the five intertidal zones, I know that this very compact and luminous pile of mussell shells is occupying the uppermost, the Spray Zone, of this tiny cove. Why they are so concentrated here but virtually absent in nearby nooks that seem just as inviting is a mystery.

Denizon of the Spray Zone.

The concentration of mussel shells above was a mystery and so was this. Every surface of this exposed ledge is covered with small barnacles while similar areas elsewhere had only spotty communities.

About thirty years ago a friend and I looked together at this place, at the foot of Tip Toe Mountain which was for sale for something like $25,000. We offered $23,000 or so but they wouldn't come down so we stormed off in a huff muttering 'we'll show 'em'. We did too, showed 'em how many more astute folks there are out there than the two of us.

All along this difficult shore folks have found a way to get to the water. In this case there was no room for a shoreside dock so the stairs lead right to the (summer) ramp.

I took someone up to Tip Toe around 1960 and told her I loved her but I can't remember who. Neither can she.

The reliable animal trail I've referred to before circumscribed this inlet and led out to a little promontory for this view back up the cove. The path reached a dead end at this viewing spot so whichever critter came out here had to turn around and go back to resume it's walk. Clearly, from the beaten down path and evidence of lingering at this spot, other species, besides my own, enjoy this view and often. A roaring brook is gushing beneath a wall of ice just beyond but I couldn't reach a place from which it could be photographed. The source, I think, is Dyer Pond, above and beyond on Middle Mountain.

Leg 18, probably this weekend will take me up and maybe around Whitmore Pond

2009-12-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

This is day 16, the 15th day during which I've been reminded I should maintain a blog of this adventure. This, then, now that Elaine has done the mechanics of setting it up, is the beginning.

PHOTOS ARE ZOOMABLE.

I undertook this journey because, as an obssessive, marginally compulsive person, the idea of walking around the island, ending on any given day at one point and beginning precisely there again the next time was irresistable. Having begun it though I've enjoyed discovering, again and again, these new perspectives of my island every time I clamber over a boulder or round a peninsula. I've seen Vinalhaven from the inside out nearly all my life. I am now seeing it from the outside in.

The walks are not daily events. Day one was on October 6, 2009; today is December 30.
Neither have they been particularly arduous. Each is between two and three hours. Most of the walk is done right on the shore, below the high tide mark although now and then, when terrain renders that route impassible, I take to the woods but stay as close to the shore as is possible. More often than not I find a convenient animal trail right at that area of transition although I sometimes have to crawl along on my hands and knees because the clear path only extends up to about four feet, the height of a deer, one bent a little to avoid getting its antlers tangled in overgrowth. The trail pictured is through a rare open area and is not as close to the shore as is usual but the trail is clear and distinctive.

Today's leg, number 16, was from Hall Island, where it connects (at low tide) to Conway Point (it will come as no surprise to islanders I found Conways there - working on the Rhinelander house), then eastward through Leadbetter Narrows and around the point to the entrance to Crockett River. The peninsula is now traversed by nicely maintained footpaths, each path marked by flotsham buoys, their spindles stuck in the ground. When I was a kid my grandparents worked for the Rhinelanders, a very gracious bunch who included my brother and I and a lot of other island kids in summer games and activities. The first memory I have of digging clams is as maybe a ten year old on these flats in front of their boathouse with the Rhinelander kids. Often there'd be string laboriously threaded through the trees all over the point leading and intentionally exhausting us all on wild treasure hunts just before dark.

I should get this bit of business done with right away; perhaps it will keep me from obssessing over it. There is more trash on the shore and in the woods near the shore than I would have thought possible. After 16 days of being overwhelmed by it I came across this tiny nook, maybe twenty five feet wide. The arrangement of rubbish gathered so perfectly by the driftwood was startlingly, well, beautiful. It is, however, a singular exception.

Vinalhaven does have beaches, lovely beaches. They'll probably never attract a boardwalk and I doubt you'll be able to get a Margarita nearby but don't let anyone tell you we don't have beaches. I could easily imagine three, maybe four, sun worshippers snuggling into this lovely, inviting and secluded oasis. This is one of several I've visited so far. The last, an expanse of perfect red sand about the same size, was on Hall Island looking out at Fiddlehead and, beyond, to Wharff Quarry.

The windmills have been visible more often than not on each day of this journey. This view is from Leadbetter Narrows.

I took my first fall today, the first of any consequence. Not bad, a little bruise, but here is a sweet vertical version of that which, lying beneath the seaweed, upended me.

Leg 17, expected to get underway next week will take me north along the eastern shore of Crocket River.