We spent 2 nights in Gloucester, MA. It's a neat little area, old fashioned small downtown on one side of the harbor and a great artist's colony on the other. Lots and lots of fishing boats.
We spent last night and tonight at Isles of Shoals, islands shared by New Hampshire and Maine. This is 9 small rocky islands, about 12 miles east of Portland, ME. Neat place to anchor. One of the islands has a retreat on it, another is home for some research work from Cornell and the Univ. of New Hampshire, another is private, another has a deserted lighthouse and a Coast Guard station. Some are too small to visit.
All of the islands have lots of Black Back seagulls. These guys are up to 30 inches tall, and they know it! Most have chicks right now and are very protective and territorial. If you get too close to their chicks, they make threatening moves, run at you, take off and gain altitude so they can make high speed, low level passes at you, each pass progressively lower. It was recommend to carry a stick, as they attack the highest point.... We tried not to aggravate them. They definitely determined where we did and didn't walk.
But..... one old biddy was not to be triffled with, much less to let us walk past her and the 2 chicks. She repeatedly picked up a stick in her beak and shook her head up & down at us. One of the professors on the island explained that this is the highest form of insult that a seagull can give you..... he said that the ultimate Italian insult gestures were nothing compaired to this. We feel honored.
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