Down East, Maine

Almost immediately after turning north from Acadia on Route 1, the world felt very different. Calmer, quieter, more subdued. There were fewer cars on the road. The restaurant in Milbridge closed up at 8:00. The few people we saw had a slower pace about them. There was basically no hurry whatsoever in the little fishing villages that sporadically dotted the coast.

We made tracks, heading northeast along the coast.

The car's electronic compass on the rearview mirror shifted from E to NE to N and back and forth.

Eventually we found ourselves in Lubec, the easternmost city in the United States. The former sardine capital of the world connected to Canada with a small bridge.

We lunched in the fishing community and set off to follow the lighthouse road icons. The iconographic red-and-white striped West Quoddy Head Light towered only a few miles to the south.

The stunning lighthouse, shrouded in a dense fog, marked the start of America. Its coordinates--44.48.9 N, 66.57.1 W--the first to see the sun each day. (We abandoned the idea of seeing the sunrise from there.)
End (Start?) of America

Looking down on the beach below, I spotted a small crag jutting out eastward, a small island in the distance. "That's the last point of America," I told my wife, pointing. "Let's go there!" Like fearless explorers we skipped down the rocky path toward the end. The jagged rocks were sharp and slippery, but we were focused on making it to the ultimate boundary. Once we'd hiked to what seemed like the end of the world (or the start of it, depending on your perspective), we posed, meditated, and congratulated ourselves for reaching the point. Everyone else in America was west of us.

Wherever it was that we were going on this trip, we'd made it.

Sitting at the end of the American land mass, we recognized it as the unofficial end of the trip.
There was nowhere to go from here but back. It was like our stop at Port Orford, Oregon,
on our road trip last summer--the westernmost spot in the continental United States.

While we relished the moments on the east, the fog began to move off the shore.
Several once-veiled islands made themselves known; land masses appeared.
x
It was time to head back to the beach, to see what else was in store.
We had spent maybe 15-20 minutes in total on this wee peninsula.

We clammored back over the rocks and were shocked to see that the passageway back to the beach was now gone.

The rising tide had swept away our way home, and our perfect promontory was now an island.

I tried to hop over some rocks still protruding from the Atlantic, but I ended up getting my boots wet in the process. On the other side, I photographed Beth taking her shoes off so she could wade back to land.

"You're not on America!" I hollered over the water. Beth didn't find that funny.

I couldn't believe that in only a few minutes the tide could have altered the landscape so dramatically. I mean, there was never a moment when we thought the walk to the "end of America" was remotely dangerous. It's only a good thing we didn't stay out there longer. Another 10-15 minutes, and we would have had to swim back.

It had been a full moon the previous night. A park ranger later told me that the tidal swing in this part of Maine was about 24 feet near a full moon. That's a 24-foot difference in the tide every six hours--or four feet every hour. But because the pace of the tide slows as it nears its low and high points, it moves much more quickly in between, probably about a foot every 10-12 minutes.

Amazing.

In the photograph with me innocently and unwittingly smiling earlier on this page (and the photo below it), you can visibly see the ripples of the ocean showing the rapid movement of the water as it rushes into the Bay of Fundy from the open Atlantic.

We learned our lesson (without much harm other than a slightly soggy sock). And while we continued to explore West Quoddy Head State Park, we refrained from traversing any low-lying land for too long a time.

At left, Beth bravely surveys a pulchritudinous but precarious precipice. High above the glittering ocean, she points eastward toward Nova Scotia.

Beth and I were--and still are--enormous fans of Wes Anderson's brilliant and wonderful movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

For this trip, we were beginning our complete obsession with the film, quoting and analyzing it incessantly.

Without fail, any time we'd reach a new photo opportunity, we'd pose in the style of the bearded captain of the Belafonte--the man who brings the "Zissou" to Team Zissou.

"You look pregnant. Where did you come from?"

We'd had our fun, and it was time to hit the road again.
Pleasant Point to Eastport

Our next, and final, destination on this trip was Eastport. We had a sunset whale watch booked in this tiny town on Moose Island. Above, the road across Point Pleasant leads the way toward Eastport.

With many stately nineteenth-century structures, tiny Eastport felt like walking back in time. At left, the town's library stands grandly on Water Street. Below, a sign in the entranceway explains its old-fashioned rules.
Library Rules

Inside the library, the clickety sounds of a typewriter at work filled the bookshelves. I realized it had been a long time since I'd heard a typewriter.

Eastport has had economic ups and downs in the years since its founding in 1772. Many closed storefronts showed what the town was at its peak. But apparently the city was in an upswing. Part of the reason for that is the schooner tours aboard the historic Sylvina W. Beal.

Built in 1911, the 84-foot Sylvina Beal is a knockabout schooner that holds up to 50 passengers. It was gorgeous and instantly recognizable as a century-old ship. In fact, the boat was used to film the setting for Amistad and Age of Innocence. At right, its mast glows burgundy in the sun.

The town's handsome post office, at left, stands strong, proudly serving zip code 04631.

We boarded the timeless Sylvina W. Beal in the late afternoon for a sunset cruise and the chance to spot some local wildlife.

The captain of the ship, Eastport-born Bruce Harris, promised we'd spot some whales on the journey. But I didn't realize quite how much else we'd see. Within minutes of leaving the dock, a few seals swam by the shores of Campobello Island, only about a minute's swim away. Dolphins surfaced for air in the distance, their unmistakable fins gracefully arcing over the water.

Captain Bruce then pointed out a bald eagle, standing nobly atop the tallest tree in the area. I took the photo at right of the surveying creature while it rested in Canada. (Perhaps even the patriotic eagle was tired of America's corrupt politics...)

On our atlas, there was small red print just off Eastport. It read: Largest whirlpool in the northern hemisphere. I've had a fascination with whirlpools since I would fill the tub just to watch it drain in a liquid tornado as a kid. This whirlpool, known as "Old Sow," is 70 meters wide when active. Today wasn't active, however. So while I didn't see Old Sow, the Bay of Fundy was clearly alive from the rush of water, causing mini swirls of water across the surface. Fun Bay of Fundy

Once I recognized what to look for in scouting for bald eagles, I noticed them everywhere, lining the tallest treetops along the shore. Below, one bald eagle is photographed in action, with the Canadian shores of Campobello Island behind it.

As we passed through Head Harbor Passage, East Quoddy Head Light (below) marked the northern end of the Canadian Campobello Island--and the entrance into the open sea. It was time to find some whales.

Below left, the two staff of the Sylvinia Beal. Standing by the wheel with his hands on his hips is the ship's owner and captain, Bruce Harris. With arms crossed is his Massachusetts-bred apprentice, whose name eludes me now. Both were incredibly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. While the ship can hold up to 50 passengers--and the midday cruise was sold out--we had a total of seven passengers on our expedition. It meant that Beth and I could chew the crew's ears off about their lives at sea. And they did live interesting lives, reminiscent of the crew of Justin's Clearwater sloop back in 2002.

Bruce expertly steered us toward a group of birds out in the open sea. He explained that porpoises swim in increasingly smaller circles around schools of fish, forcing the schools to swim in denser packs. Eventually the porpoises drive the fish toward the surface where they have no escape. The porpoises pick at the edges of the school while seagulls, diving in from above, get to pick from the top. All the while, whales let the smaller creatures do their hard work--and they come barreling in to the dense school of fish for the lion's share of the meal.

We followed the cluster of creatures, occasionally spotting one of the whales as they dined. I never really got a good picture of a whale; the timing of their appearances seemed to mess with my shutter response time. I did get some nice porpoise photos, though. One comes up for air below, with patches of low-lying clouds breaking up the land mass behind it.

The schooner drifted lazily by the feasting mammals until the sun sank over the American continent. And with its setting our expedition had concluded as well. The boat was extraordinarily quiet for the ride home, aside from the sloshing of the Bay of Fundy against the hull, and there was little to do but reflect--reflect on another successful journey, another adventure with my wife, another amazing peek into a corner of the country I call home. My wife and I set off on the road to Maine with no preconceived notions, no direction, and the trip took us to amazing new places. Below, Bethy faces homeward bound.

Driving back from Calais the following morning, we slowly rejoined civilization--and, with it, traffic, Connecticut, and the accustomed speed of life. Beth and I swore to each other to let the joy of the Maine trip pervade our lives. We promised to remember Maine's wondrous pace and let it influence our internal rythmes like the eternal ebb and flow of the tide.