Downeast Maine is wicked good!

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 21, 2022

We are really enjoying our time in Downeast Maine! While many people visit Acadia National Park in this beautiful coastal part of Maine, we are becoming especially fond of the coast further east. Downeast Maine is where the tourist crowds stop and the blueberry fields begin. People in Downeast Maine have their own accent and way of pronouncing landmarks. The residents completely drop the "r" on the end of most words. For example, they would say "cah" instead of car, and "Bah Ha-bah" instead of Bar Harbor. This is also where the term "wicked good" came from, and we love that kind of enthusiasm.

Maybe we are loving this eastern section of Downeast Maine because of our camp site. We are especially enjoying Sunset Point Campground with our front windshield view of the bay just 100 yards away from us. This has to be one of our top ten camp sites since we started traveling full-time! It is wicked good! The view changes dramatically with the tides, and this morning we were trying to capture the high tide views. Denisa took pictures from exactly the same place to show the high tide views . . .

in comparison with the low tide view. At low tide the mud flats are showing and the point of land in front of us is uncovered.

We prefer high tide views. At another angle from our campground, we can compare high tide . . .

with a much muddier low tide view. The campground owner said that the water level lowers around 15 feet in this bay. We could go kayaking at high tide, but you better return before low tide when the boat dock is far from the water.

On Sunday morning we attended services at the little Baptist Church in town. We must say that we have a harder time finding a good church here in New England. Even though we attended church the last two Sundays, we have struck out in hearing a good sermon. So we were glad to find a fine preacher with a gospel message from the Bible. That's harder to find than we had hoped. We have always loved the postcard picture of an old white church building with its tall steepled roof among the colorful fall foliage in New England. We are sad to report that many of those old church buildings no longer have active congregations. We've seen those buildings turned into community centers, bakeries, art galleries, restaurants, libraries, and addiction centers. The church is no longer the center focus in too many of these little New England towns.

After that sad rant on this Sunday morning, we headed for a hike at the Great Wass Island Preserve. This is a picture of the a 4.5-mile loop hike that includes the Little Cape Point Trail, the Shoreline Trail, and the Mud Hole Trail. It's always nice to see a map of where we are heading.

The first 2.2 miles is through the forest, and we were glad to see some raised wooded boardwalks to keep us up out of the mud.

Other parts of the forest trail were very rugged, and obviously have not been maintained. We were bush-whacking our way through the bushes and trees.

These are interesting evergreens, with equally interesting pine cones. The sap was literally encasing and dripping from the pine cones.

After a walk through the coastal forest, we were glad to break into ocean views.

It was 70 degrees with light coastal breezes. That's not bad for an August afternoon when most of the country is enduring sweltering heat. We've been blessed with a beautiful day to wander more of God's wonders.

It was approaching low tide, and we could see the water line on the rocky shore line. This is a wicked good hike!

Great Wass Island sticks out into the ocean, with watery views in all directions. We hiked all the way to Little Cape Point.

This trail isn't marked, and it isn't smooth. We just kept the ocean on our right and continued around the point to stay on this informal trail.

While we made our way on this 2.3-mile shore-line section, we were often scrambling over the rocks.

This was when we were entertained by the local wildlife. While we have seen many gray seals this summer, we were accompanied by harbor seals this afternoon. The gray seals have horse-like faces, and the harbor seals have faces that resemble cocker spaniels. They have cute little noses and large eyes that make them seem friendlier.

We are still in lobster territory, with the buoys marking lobster traps as far as we could see. It's harder to spot bobbing seal heads in the water when there are so many bobbing lobster buoys on the horizon.

When we looked far across the cove where the fog was collecting, we could make out the Moose Peak Lighthouse in the distance.

When we got to the far side of the shoreline trail, we started seeing a little sand and some bright purple sea shells. That can only mean one thing--Denisa has to work on some beach art. She has actually been waiting for a Maine beach so she could spell out this state's postal abbreviation "ME"--which is also Mark's initials.

According to the map, our "Shoreline trail" has now become "Mud Hole Trail." With no trail signs or blazes, it is hard to know when the trail changed. But we are in the mud cove now, which was a little muddy at low tide. So ME was actually spelled out on a rock instead of a sandy beach.

Instead of sand, we only found pebble beaches here on this rocky shore line. We found more wildlife sharing the shore with us. 

We are loving this less-visited Downeast Maine shore line. While the southern sections of Maine are crowded and very touristy, few people see this area close to the Canadian border. After sharing hikes with thousands of people in Acadia National Park, we have this place to ourselves. We had been hiking for hours, and we've only seen a hand-full of people. We had a nice conversation with a Harvard anthropology professor, and a couple from Rhode Island. But most of the time we had this wonder to ourselves on a perfect weather weekend. Wicked good!

Overhead, a juvenile bald eagle soared by. Another nice part of being Downeast with fewer tourists is that we are seeing more wildlife.

We explored some extra coves and scrambled up to some rock views. We stretched this 4.5-mile loop into 5.2 miles. It took us almost four hours because we were stopping to enjoy the wicked good views so often. After we circled back to the pickup, we drove home through the fishing village of Beals Island. We love little towns like this where people are more likely to own a boat than a "cah." 

The ocean fog was engulfing the shore line as we drove back to our campground. It's a drive beside the beautiful wild blueberry fields, and the sun peaking through the fog was lovely. We've been blessed on this Sunday in Downeast Maine. In our opinion, this area is wicked good!