LATITUDES' JOURNEY: Noooooo wifi

Maine’s beautiful rustic lands are great for sightseeing, but not so much for wifi. Just now catching up…

While Ange and Ray were still here, we took a car excursion southward. Our first stop was at the Owl’s Head Lighthouse, featured in a previous post. All signs lead to the lighthouse and lobsters!

Yulp, the steps to the actual lighthouse really are that steep.

Lunch in Tenants Harbor, a busy working harbor that we have decided to never again try to take Latitudes into. Tried it once, never again. The channel and harbor are crowded with lobster floats and lobster boats. By car is MUCH easier, no panic. “Luke’s at Tenants Harbor”! So, of course, we had lunch there and I bought one of their cotton bags.

Ange and Ray celebrated an early 50^th anniversary while in Camden. They invited us to join them for dinner at the Hartstone Inn. Oh, yum! Quaint, quiet, and beautiful. If you ever get the chance, have at least a drink and appetizer there, maybe in the garden, although we’d definitely recommend dinner!

A day of errands for Luke and me ended with a trip to the Camden State Park, site of Mount Battie. Here is the view of the Penobscot Bay from Mt. Battie. That is Camden in the foreground, Rockland tucked to the upper right corner.

Oh, and we saw a brand new lobster boat being lowered into the water for her first time. Quite a celebration around the 48 foot beauty, including a representative from the manufacturer taking drone footage of the event. You can see the drone at the top of the picture. This large boat will be used year round and is the first of it’s model to be 48 feet.

Back at Latitudes,with just the 2 of us and Sweet Smokey, she decided it was time to sniff out all of the places that the intruders on the boat had touched. She was busy. Thank God she isn’t a male dog!

We left Rockland and headed “down east” towards Acadia to meet friends from Roanoke. Our first stop was Burnt Coat Harbor on Swans Island. When French explorer de Champlain visited the area in 1604, a forest fire had apparently ravaged the island's forests earlier. He named the area “Brule Cote” meaning “burnt coast”. The name was later Anglicized to Burnt Coat. The first white settler was a hermit, but the next one brought 3 wives, had over 2 dozen children, and definitely populated the island! The harbor is now mostly working lobstermen, plus a few guest moorings. It is a nice island to walk on.

We awoke the first morning there to fog. F. O. G. We do hate fog, as mentioned many times before.

The Burnt Coat lighthouse appeared as the fog began to drift away and dissipate.

Next, a short trip to the island of Frenchboro, a favorite place for us. There is almost nothing there except a deli/lobster pound, church, school for the 3 children (about 20-30 year round residents), and a museum/library. About 75% of the land is owned by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

The small cove empties out at low tide.

We met our friends there for a day of boating on Latitudes and a wonderful dinner ashore at the home our friends were staying in. They invited a lobsterman and his girlfriend – they were very nice and didn’t mind answering our foolish questions about lobstering and living on the island.

Smokey tolerated everyone on the boat as long as possible. Finally, when we anchored for lunch, she decided to “hide” from everyone….

The next day Luke and I went a-hiking on one of the trails in the Frenchboro Preserve. Here I am, ready to adventure through the woods, socks tucked very elegantly over my jeans to deter ticks (yes, we used spray, too).