Across The Water

I was slowly walking back and forth atop a lovely little mountain in Cape Rosier Easter morning, when I heard a sound that stopped me dead in my tracks. As clear as day, across the water, no more than a mile away, the Sunday morning church bells of Castine began to ring. Piercing the silence all around me, the bells were a glorious sound to my ears! Faint, but true, they echoed across Smith Cove, across the Bagaduce river, and up to me on my little mountain perch. Surrounded by magnificent Balsam fir pines, multi colored moss and lichen, and swaying Spanish moss, I was transfixed by the sweet sound of church bells. It was the perfect way to spend Easter morning, and it was the only man made sound I would hear for the next four hours. Alone, but surrounded by the many faces of nature, I hiked all around the various trails that wind and twist their way through the Holbrook Island Sanctuary. Windswept and alive with the sounds of birds and peepers, the Sanctuary was truly an escape from the ordinary on this beautiful late April morning. Rays of sun shimmered through the pines and birches that guard these trails like giant walls of spruce and bark. Mud covered my boots as I stepped from log to log and carefully made my way through the woods, inhaling every sumptuous scent my senses could stand. On one particular trail, a mile walk leads to a small but spectacular body of water called Fresh Pond. Surrounded by spruce trees and a confluence of small bogs, the pond was still as glass on this Easter morning. I leaned against a tree, and closed my eyes. All I could hear were the chirping sounds of peepers, the occasional bumble bee flying by, and the cool wind that moved through the trees with a softness that lingered well into the afternoon. Many people are not afforded the precious opportunity to witness nature in it's truest form, with no distractions or interruptions. I pity these people, for there is no greater sound than the sound of the natural world, and to miss out on these moments is to miss out on a lot. All around our country, nature is being attacked by the immense forces of the mechanical world. Places that offer the rare uninterupted audience with nature are dwindling at an alarming rate. I choose to live in coastal Maine, not just because of the it's abundance of these rare places, but because these places are protected and looked after with a deep passion and commitment. A commitment that is strictly centered on conservation and preservation. On the eastern side of the sanctuary, up by the entrance to east Penobscot Bay, there is a small cove that affords a great view across the Bagaduce river. Nautilus Island sits in the distance to the left of Castine. The gracious white colonials of the town and the Maine Maritime Academy's imposing training vessel, "The State of Maine," are there in plain view. To the left of the cove, tall balsam firs line the shore, while the right of the cove is holds hundreds of jagged and weathered rocks, each with thier own color and geological pattern. Spanish moss seems to cover everything in sight, swaying back and forth with the river's breeze. A few feet from the shore, a small granite bench sits underneath the cover of two tall spruce trees, positioned perfectly to look out to the river and the view beyond. On the top of the bench, there is a small engraving in honor of a local resident who had recently passed way. Underneath the resident's name and her date of departure, it reads, "enjoy the sunset."

Fits and Starts

"It might seem that spring in Maine comes on in fits and starts, but something so inexorable is taking place that even a sudden April storm (I can remember one in May) dropping a perfect white snow onto the world isn't going to slow this business down. Because just as suddenly, the sky will become completely blue, and the sun will shine so brilliantly you'll be blinded for a minute by the dazzle-and then will come the shimmer from the quickly melting spring snow, the water dripping steadily off the trees. In a few days there'll be some fat yellow dandelions close to the ground. As the days get warmer, the air feels sweeter, and in spite of the increasing vim and vigor of color-forsythia bushes that have burst into blossom beside old red barns, daffodils blooming, the tulips that finally open wide-it is the sweetness in the air that throws me off guard, causes some restless disturbance in my soul. It's as though the forwardness of nature forces in me a piercing and poignant nostalgia. I suddenly remember how the sun falls on granite stones and bakes them warm. How it bathes the moss in the woods bright green. How all sorts of things begin poking up through the pine needles; fiddle heads ready to unfurl, a trillium in bloom, deep green leaves of wild lilies of the valley, white Indian pipes, violets, hepaticas.....

-Elizabeth Strout, "Maine, The Seasons."

Spiritual Awakening

It is truly hard to describe the awesome, rugged, and sheer beauty of Maine's famed Bold Coast. Forbidding and vast, this majestic section of Down East Maine is at once accessible, but at the same time, it seems to beautiful to be real. One feels like they have reached the end of the world, and entered a whole new place. A place that will challenge, inspire and awe you at every turn. Simply put, the Bold Coast is extraordinary! Beginning at the banks of Cutler Harbor and extending up to Lubec, West Quoddy head and the Canadien Border, roughly 20 miles in length, the coastline features 200 foot cliffs, craggy shelves of weathered rocks, giant pine trees that reach high towards the heavens, and the foamy, turbulent Bay of Fundy, a rough sea that spits and surges spray as it slams into shore. I made the three hour journey to Cutler this past Monday afternoon, ready to capture the sights and sounds of the Bold Coast in early spring. What I got, far exceeded my expectations, and quietly allowed for a true awakening of my spirit, which has just now begun to creep out of the winter doldrums and into the raw and fresh offerings of spring. An 11 mile trail, part of the Cutler Public Reserved Land, loops around Western Head in Cutler, and back towards Lubec, before it turns inland, where the trail snakes and weaves through spectacular forests of spruce, birch and maples, all while crossing quiet brooks, raging streams and lovely little ponds. The smells on the hike are simply delicious! They seem to shift every few minutes from the arresting aroma of green grass, to the delicate scent of spruce, and to the powerful smell of the wild ocean that sits below me, raging and swirling at every turn. At one end of the trail, there is a man made wooden ladder that allows for the hiker to access a large rocky beach that is bordered on the left and right by two massive headlands of rock and spruce. Protected from the cool winds of April, I spent a good hour sitting on a large rock, allowing the sun to shine on my face and the sound of the incoming tides to fill my ears. I was away from the world completely at this point. My good friend Jerry, a very accomplished hiker from northern New Hampshire who had accomponied me on my foray, was the only other soul in sight. He has climbed the White Mountains his whole life, seen the views from atop the Presedentials and through the various notches and ravines of the Whites. Yet he could hardly comprehend how beautiful his present view from our beach was. "This is amazing," he said, as he ambled towards the shore line, dodging ocean spray as he went. "I think I could stay here forever." I agreed with my friend. We were locked in a magical world of blue ocean, green trees, and every colored rock you could think of. My spirit and my soul were in complete ecstasy, my body at complete ease. The temperature hovered around 55 and the wind off the Bay of Fundy swirled around us in a gentle manner that made the day all the more pleasant. I have seen so many places on this glorious coast of Maine, but none can compare with the sheer beauty of the Bold Coast. This place is another world indeed. Just stunning, from every angle!

April Showers

The sky was gray, the water was still, and the grass below my feet sagged with the weight of mud. I could sense the season of spring in Port Clyde yesterday. The St George peninsula was coming back to life. The once frozen and snow covered fields and dirt roads in town were now slowly turning into muddy avenues of melted snow. The birds that flew south for the winter had now returned in abundance. Seagulls swooped and soared all around me, diving and dipping their beaks in the cool waters of Muscongus Bay. The temperature approached 60 degrees, which felt downright balmy after the winter we Mainers had just endured. The air was sweet with the smell of rain, and that particular smell is so sweet to the senses! It represents a seemingly lazy indifference in the air. No longer does the sky feel like it will explode with snow and wind. No longer does the the sun look like it will set before afternoon reaches it's end. This is the time for hope and optimism. This is the time to witness the rebirth of the natural world, and watch the land break out of it's long and cold winter hibernation. I found a lovely old spruce tree to sit under as a light rain began to fall. There was nothing but quiet around me. The silence enveloped me like a gentle wave that reaches the shore and lingers for a while before the tide inevitably pulls it back. The sweet sound of rain began to breach the silence as the pitter patter of drizzle hit the ocean with a soft echo that reverberated all around the shore. My back against the spruce, in a small cove on the backside of Port Clyde Harbor, I watched the rain fall, and watched my favorite season arrive. Slowly but surely, spring had come to the coast of Maine. As they say, April showers will bring May flowers, and I can't wait for May.