Blueberry Festival and Mistake Island and 1334 miles

Ever wonder why blueberries cost so much? Because it's hard work, that's why... We took a side trip to a blueberry farm, one of the many small local growers in Maine.

These folks grow 34 acres a year. The harvesting is with a migratory Guatemalan or Haitian help, back-breaking work of "combing" the low blueberry plants with 2 ft long combs, and then dumping the berries into a box. The farm owner is showing us how. Those are a couple of the combs in the foreground. How'd you like to do that for 34 acres?

Next, for sale as "fresh" (as opposed to processed) berries, the berries are tumbled onto a little moving belt (think about the grocery store) while somebody else in the family picks out the obviously bad ones. The bad ones go to another buyer to make juice, etc, instead of selling as fresh berries. All this for $3.00/pint from the grower.

On Mistake Island, we picked enough in the wild to make a pie, and it was hard work. We happened to go to the farm as a part of the Blueberry Festival in Machias, ME. Machias was our most northern latitude this trip, slightly further north than our last stop in Cutler last year. We were at 44 deg 43.160N. That a 1334 mile straight line distance from our most southern point in the Bahamas this winter. Whew! The town of Machias itself is over 5 miles up the Machias river, a shallow river that Latitudes couldn't negotiate. It was a pleasant dinghy ride. Here is the low bridge that Latitudes could not pass under, not to mention the shallow water.

We saw eagles en route, several of them. But, I could only catch a shot of one as he soared away from us.

The festival had the usual church sponsored fish dinner (it was good, actually, with blueberry pie for desert!)

And then, the obligatory pie eating contest...

There were lots of the usual craft and art booths, many with beautiful art and jewelry.

From Machias, we headed for Mistake Island. This was one of our favorite spots last year. It has a deserted Coast Guard shack and lighthouse on it, with a narrow boardwalk across the small island.

There is a deep inlet between Mistake Island and it's neighbor. With tide variations of over 12 feet here, the inlet goes from 12 foot depths to a mud flat at low tide. Here's the dinghy, sitting on the mudflat beside the old Coast Guard shack. You can't stay on the island too long, though, if you leave the dinghy here. 12 feet in 6 hours means a quick change in the water levels, like 3 ft per hour at half tide!

The Mistake Island Lighthouse as seen from the same istmus between Mistake and it's neighbor, Knight Island.

We did stay long enough to pick those berries and to take some shots of the beautiful view from the top of the island.

We spent the night anchored among the rocky ledges at Mistake Island. There's more room than is seems.

The next morning was foggy. Here's the lighthouse as we left the inlet. It stayed that way almost all day, with only a few breaks in the fog. We had to finally dig out the ol' Maine foghorn. We have radar and can see all the other boats out there. But if they don't have radar, they can't see us, but they can HEAR us! Anyway, it's a law that you are supposed to blow a foghorn during dense fog. Makes me feel better.

Back to Acadia for the day, to meet friends from Portsmouth, Gail and Eric, for a couple of days. We spent a little time yesterday on Little Cranberry Island. Always wanted to go there --- been there, done that... There is a post office with a closed up general market, a couple of local craft shops, and a small museum of the history of the island. oh, and a restaurant that opens at 5pm. Nice to visit, once.