Frenchboro

Latitude 44 deg 07.26'N

We waited out the fog in Stonington until around 11am, then headed out to sea. Kayakers were plying the quiet waters between Devil and Bold Islands, about 1 1/2 miles from town. We saw others making the trek from the town to Crotch Island, where the quarries are.



Look at this band of fog. It truly shows a fog band --- you can see exactly where the fog starts (about 1/2 way in the water) and how high it is. It's really strange to see it and know you're going to be sailing into it.

We went to Frenchboro, on Long Island (ME not NY), a small island about 15 miles off shore. It's a community of 30 families, a few moorings, 2 restaurants (one seats 6....), church, elementary school (high school age has to move off island to attend school), a library that will rent you books if you promise to mail them back, a post office located in a private home, and a small harbor full of lobster boats. Very quaint.

But -- the real feature here is a 900 acre nature preserve, rescued by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust from a timbering operation that wanted to buy it.

The island is a marshy woods, full of little cranberry bogs, lush plants, and tall firs.

The coast is rocky, much of it the pink granite that we saw in Stonington.

The sea erodes the beach rocks to beautiful, rounded boulders. Well, beautiful to look at and to gather a few small, round, pink rocks, but not so great to hike out onto in boat sandals.

Anyway, a nice place to visit and hike and have cheap, home-made lobster rolls. :-)

Stonington

Latitude: 44 degrees 09.15'N (a new addition to each blog -- our latitude in Latitudes!)

What color is rain? When the cockpit is the only place to dry wet clothes, bath towels, life vests, etc, it can be very colorful :-)

The rains finally ended during the night on Friday, so we left our spectacular Castine/Holbrook Island harbor and motored to Stonington. The usual lighthouses popped up along the way and, of course, we can't resist them.






Stonington has a rich history of both fishermen and granite miners. This is the beginning of "down east" for us. We arrived at low tide - look at the pilings and steep walk ways below.



The town is full of fishing and lobstering boats. We are the only "pleasure craft" here today. There is a huge lobster dock, reserved for only the lobstermen and their work.

We walked Main Street and up hill to some of the streets beyond.

The other business is granite, pink granite. It's been quarried here since the 1800's. JFK's memorial, the big 20 ft bowl at Rockefeller Center (the one with the big statue in it...), the Library of Congress, and multiple buildings in NYC are all examples of where this granite has been used. The granite isn't just on Crotch Island, it's on all of the surrounding islands of Merchants Row. It makes a beautiful addition to the green firs of the islands.



To the east of Stonington are a cluster of islands forming "Merchants Row". Crotch Island is one of them, and this is where the pink granite is again being mined. There are huge blocks of granite at the dock there, waiting for pick up.





Just one of the many islands at Stonington. Some are very small, some relatively large, some only rocks that appear at low tide (boaters, beware!!!).



Today, Sunday, the fog has settled in for a while, so, so have we.



Look carefully at the picture below. Can you see the fogbow (yes, I made up that word) at our stern? Sort of like a rainbow without the colors, something I've never seen before. Apparently it's the light through the moisture in the air because of the fog. We could see it on both sides of the boat. WHEN the fog lifts, the plan is to go to Frenchboro, a tiny island of 79 people, but with spectacular scenery.

Castine, Holbrook Island Sanctuary, and the court martial of Paul Revere

On the water again! We loved our visit in Denver, but it was nice to get "home". Picked up the ever-grateful Wickie from the vet and got a relatively good report on him. The renal failure is getting a little worse, but he is still clean from diabeties, kidney infections, and thryoid problems. Gotta be thankful for what you can!

We left Bucks Harbor Tuesday (5th) and headed for Castine.

This is typical of the seaside towns here, a few shops and general markets, along with a marina.

Castine is a really old city that was held by the British, Dutch, and French. Over 16 fortifications were build in this tiny town. It was the site of the Penobscot Expedition, the largest American naval expedition of the Revolutionary war. Also the worst defeat that the Americans suffered during that war.

Although the Americans had the Brits way out-numbered (1000 men vs 600 PLUS 43 warships vs 0), the unfortunate decision was made to retreat instead of attack. Good ol' Paul Revere was in charge of the artillery and was court martialed for his actions. He was acquitted, but his reputation was permanently damaged. So much for our elementary school hero and his midnight ride!

Castine is also home to the Maine Marine Academy. They teach all sorts of marine related occupations. There is a training ship, T.S. State of Maine, that also goes out 2 months of the year. We took an hour tour of her and she's big, 550 ft long! Interestingly, it was originally built as a Navy spy ship, decomissioned and given to the State of Maine.

We ended up in Holbrook Harbor, across the Bagaduce River from Castine, in the same anchorage as friends we met a week or so ago and had dinner with them. I love it when someone else cooks! :-)

Thursday morning we dinghed to the 2 separate islands that are the Holbrook Island Sanctuary. Both were damaged badly by a micro-burst last spring and most trails aren't open yet because of trees blown down. But it was still a beautiful place to take a good hike. We are always glad for a nice place to get off the boat and walk a bit.

The rains came Thursday afternoon and have stayed since then. It's chilly in addition to the rain --- upper 50's at night, lower 60's during the day. Thank goodness for our little propane space heater! We plan to leave Saturday morning and head to the Mount Desert bay, which includes Bar Harbor.

Holbrook Harbor has been peaceful and lightly populated. It does seem to be a favorite place for the passenger carying schooners to overnight. We've seen three in here, each more scenic than the last.

Indian Peaks Wilderness, Brainard Park, alpine flowers, glaciers, and Estes Elk

Our last couple of days in Colorado.... We drove to Brainard Park, to Longlake, in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. This is an area of breath taking views, postcard settings, lush alpine meadows, carpets of wild flowers, glaciers, etc, etc. My definite favorite!

First, the overall view was magnificent! That's Longlake in the foreground.

Then, the high alpine flowers were in full bloom. It was a riot of color. The flower fields were intermixed with hiking trails through the forest, all with views of the mountain range.

We met a guy who was walking to the top of one of the glaciers to ski.... about 3 hour walk, total. It was 104 in Boulder, cooler in the park, but not cool enough for ME to be hiking 3 hours with ski pants, carrying skis, and wearing bulky ski boots.

Here's where he's headed....

We met the families and then went to Estes Park. Spent a little time wandering through the town, checked out a glass blowing shop, had ice cream (of course), and then drove to Mary's Lake. Mary's Lake has 2 major attractions --- first, it's beautiful. A lot of folks fish there.

Second, there are ELK! Two of them showed up around dusk. They wandered around the grounds, eating some folage.

As the crowd gathered to watch them, they retreated to the relative safety of the water.

Let me tell you, elk are huge! and beautiful. They completed my trip to Colorado :-)

Colorado

We are enjoying Colorado. Lisa lives in downtown (or is it uptown...) Denver. Erin lives in a smaller town outside of Boulder, Longmont. It's about a 45 minute drive between them, which is good --- get to see the countryside, etc. It's been great tourist weather, sunny, clear, and hot. The area needs rain desperately; they haven't had rain since Memorial Day. And it IS hot. It's been 100 the last 2 days and that is supposed to continue. We've compensated by going up into the cooler mountains. This is Boulder Falls.




This is Barker Lake, the reservoir for Boulder County. You can see the ski slopes on the mountain. I need to find out which resort that is! Look carefully at the far mountains --- snow! still -in August!



We got local directions for a short-cut back to Boulder :-) This is a dirt road "but it's a school bus road".

It went through beautiful country, old towns, old hippie communes, etc. The old hippie communes are now mostly "ashrams", which are spiritual centers for self-growth, development.

The town of Gold Hill is almost nothing but a store and a few houses (118 population). But I found some GREAT locally made porcupine quill and bead earrings at a killer price at the store!


There are a lot of old gold mine shafts, too, all dilapidated and run down. A lot of broken dreams...



And of course, grandbaby sight-seeing. Here's Cian and baby Evelyn.

And Mat and baby Simon.

And Lisa, Bonma :-) and baby Simon. I'll get a good picture of Erin with cute little Evelyn next!

oh, and let's not forget Cian's parents wild kitten, Lucy.

North Haven, Bucks Harbor, and Denver

We were without internet service (and cell phone!) for almost a week now. The Penobscot Bay islands tend to be high, almost cliffs, which results in the waterline being almost in a bowl. The reception there is between spotty and non-existant.



We ended up spending an extra day, a rainy one, at Pulpit Harbor.

The next day we sailed over to North Haven. North Haven is the little town that we accidentally walked to in our last blog post. It's a lot easier by boat :-) The town was more awake this time, and full of activity. The Community Center is a great little place, full of village folks spending time together. Moms with children playing board games, older folks reading the paper, teens spending time together. There is a little coffee shop there, plus an auditorium where some movies are shown and a local little theater. But the town shows life of better times in earlier days.

Inspired by Andrew Wyeth, I tried my hand at a still life in Maine --- simple and a little stark. I liked it.

A couple of artist shops and a YARN shop!, and a marine shop complete the town (oh, and the little restaurant). A car ferry runs from North Haven to Rockland daily, carrying tourists and locals who work in Rockland.

We were completely fogged in the next day; waited until 1pm to leave for Bucks Harbor.

There was heavy fog most of the way (remeber that fog horn a few blogs back?). The fog finally broke as we approached Bucks Harbor --- I hate that we missed most of this gorgeous scenory on the trip! Here is the lighthouse near the entrace to Bucks Harbor, complete with a little remaining fog in the background.

About 25 old wooden schooners are still running in this area, engged in the tourist trade. We saw several of them, under sail, just beautiful and a part of the past!

A couple of days in Bucks Harbor that included laundry and a nice walk (looking for cell coverage in all of the wrong places), and we left Monday (28th) for Denver. One of the dock boys gave us a lift to the airport in Bangor. Inland Maine, at least this area, is beautiful. It actually reminds me a lot of the Blue Ridge area.

A long trip later, and we are in Denver! Cian's parents, from Ireland, are now visiting the homeland, and have graciously invited us to stay in their home in Boulder while we're in CO. It's wonderful to have access of a house again.

Grandbabies! They are, of course, beautiful and sweet. Here';s the new Bonpa (that's Flemish for "grandfather" and Luke's new title) with his wee little ones.

Simon, Lisa and Mat's son, is now 6 weeks old.

Evelyn, Erin and Cian's daughter, is now 3 weeks old.