9/22/06 (Friday): We had a fantastic day today! We took my cousins, Donna and Dave` to Port Clyde where we caught the ferry (the Elizabeth Ann) to Monhegan Island--something I've been wanting to do since we first got here.

We left right on time, but about 10 minutes out the captain came on the loud speaker and said we were going back to the dock to pick up some stragglers. It was unbelievable the outcry that arose--you'd have thought the trip was canceled or we'd been asked to make some huge sacrifice! I felt sorry for the people who came aboard. They were teased and even treated sort of rudely by some of the passengers.

We hadn't gone too much further when someone spotted a whale. It came up twice and then a few minutes later I spotted one on the other side of the boat! What a treat! I went over and thanked the folks who'd come and late--I said we'd have missed the whale if we hadn't been delayed! They appreciated that, and I later heard them repeating it to some of the other folks. The captain said the whales we saw were minke (pronounced minkie) whales. This picture is from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_Whale), and this is about how much we saw of the whale. They're pretty small, but what a treat!

Monhegan is a small (about 1 square mile), rocky island about 10 miles from the nearest mainland. It is accessible only by boat. There are no cars or paved roads on the island, although we saw a few pick-up trucks doing construction.

Many of the houses do not have electricity (we could see kerosene and oil lamps through the windows of many homes). A few had hand pumps outside the kitchen doors.

The explorer John Smith visited the island in 1614, but it was well known as a prime fishing area to the Native Americans long before that. Fishing and lobstering are still the mainstays of the local economy, although it's also well know as a haven for artists.



Most of the homes had lovely gardens and there were lots of artists working outside everywhere--also sculptures in front of many buildings. The year-round population is about 65 people. This tree guy was carved in place on a stump!



There's a hotel, a school, a library, a general store and a couple of small gift shops and restaurants.









The first thing we saw when we got off the boat was Elva's P.O. Store. That was my mother's first name, and it's a very unusual one. I've never met anyone else with that name. It turns out that Elva was the postmistress in the 1890's.









We walked around the village and then got on a very pretty road that became a hiking trail with a kind of ugly name--Burnt Head. It led from the town to the uninhabited side of the island on the Atlantic.

The wildflowers were gorgeous. When I saw this one, I knew immediately that it was a fringed gentian. I'd never seen one, but I remembered the poem by William Cullen Bryan that I learned in high school:

"Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall."

We could hear the breakers even before we reached the sea. This side of the island has some of the highest cliffs in all of Maine. It seemed like we were taking photos at every bend in the trail. This is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life.

There were artists working here, too.







This cross with a life preserver on it was a sad reminder that the cliffs can be dangerous as well as beautiful.







The trail curved back toward town, passing by the highest point on the island where the Monhegan Lighthouse stands. There's a museum there, but we reached it too late and it was closing. Plus we had to get back so we didn't make the ferry late (didn't want to receive any of the verbal abuse of the unfortunate passengers on the outgoing ferry!). We enjoyed a view of the town and Manana Island with its abandoned Coast Guard station on the way down. There are rocks purported to contain Norse or Phoenician inscriptions on Manana Island. Wish we could have gotten over there to see that!


We had ice cream in a little store with a beautiful view before we headed back. No whales on this trip, but lots of fresh air and our great hike had given us an appetite that the ice cream didn't satisfy. Donna and Dave treated us to a great seafood dinner at Cappy's in Camden. We all turned in early. Donna and Dave are leaving in the morning and Wiley and I go back to work.