But not so fast.
Yesterday as I was tooling around on the buses I found a couple of places I wanted to go back to today and spend some time.
The Seawall is a natural boulder and stone wall that has been created by thousands of years of wave action.
The sun was out, the tide was out and so was my chair. Sitting on one of the large flat rocks to watch boats of all kinds manoever around in the lifting fog and listen to the waves and little birds playing around in the drying kelp.
The fog lifted and the sun came out and it was an awesome visit.
Right, so nearly 2 hours later (gee time flies around here).
I packed up my stuff and headed out before the tide came back in and swamped me.
One part of the island, (which I've found out is really called Mount Desert Island but is pronounced "dessert" island and the signs around saying "MDI" have nothing to do with a meter dosed inhaler as I'm used to saying MDI in my job but about initials of the island. Got that figured out. Ha!) isn't covered by the buses so I decided to check it out.
It follows the western side of the island and weaves around small hamlets. Surprisingly it looks very similar to parts of Nova Scotia that I drove around. Man, that seems so long ago!
My next visit was to the Oceanarium which is really a lobster hatchery. Very cool.
I started my visit right in the hatchery! This place takes 2 weeks to bring the eggs to 4th stage babies which are 4-10 mm (yes, millimetres) long then released into the wilds of the ocean. The lecturer (all are students of ocean sciences which includes the biology part of things all the way to ethics) was super at explaining the process of how the eggs are hatched and nurtured. The babies live in huge cylinders of water where air is bubbled through. Interesting.
This is to keep the babies floating around, grabbing food and not their brothers and sisters. There is a fair amount of cannibalism that goes on. They are fed brine shrimp even smaller than they are. The temperature is monitored (made warmer than the ocean) and fed regularly.
The release is quite interesting too!
The baby lobsters are placed in a large cooler with a hose attached to the drainage port. The bottom of the hose is weighted so it goes right to the bottom of the ocean. The babies pour out of this hose and land where ever they land. The whole process moves along the floor so that there isn't a concentration of babies all in one place. This would attract predators (fish) and the little ones would eat all the food in one area. They are released in a similar area where the female who's eggs were ready to be naturally hatched was captured.
Very ingeneous. We saw all of this on a video! The staff were releasing the latest batch of hatchlings today.
Then there was the discovery pool where various sea creatures were in it. Sea cucumber (really gross to hold), horseshoe crabs (truly a cool thing), moon snails, star fish, sea urchins and scallops were all picked up, handled, investigated and the lecturer, again, was awesome. Here she is holding (upside down to show the underside) a huge female horseshoe crab which is more of a cousin of the spider than a crab.
This was so interesting!
The final lecture was on lobster fishing and how it all works. It was equally as interesting and I learned that soft shell lobster are actually ones that have recently molted and then they fill themselves with water to expland the hardening shell. They are cheaper to buy but they will be full of water. Hmmm Good to know.
Hungry it's time for my later lunch and it was, you guessed it. LOBSTER!
Off to another lobster pound that I had seen in Trenton up the road.
I got to pick my own crustacean and they cooked it perfectly (natch) over a boiling cauldron fueled by a wood fire. Perfect!
I was sitting in a screened in porch area having a grand time going through the beast. When I looked up after picking away at a claw who was sitting outside under an umbrella with her entourage? Martha Stewart! Holy Cow!
I overheard that she had flown her gang in and they are staying on part of the island. Guess having your own jet has it's advantages.
They were all leaving as I was so as I walked by I smiled and said "Hi" and she just smiled and one of the entourage said hi back. As we were all kind of in the same area it's only polite to acknowledge each other's presence. She seemed rather focussed on her chow dog (who was panting his fool head off in the humidity) and I gave him a pet as he sniffed me.
My brush with celebrity over I headed out to the hotel to park the vehicle and head over to the shoreline at the Regency across the road and maybe go for a swim there in the pool.
Pool was full of kids so I let that go and found a lovely spot to sit in the shade and watch the world go by. So spectactular!
So, another day gone by. Don't know where it went... Oh yes I do! I was having a great time in the out of doors enjoying beautiful weather, getting educated and enjoying a lovely lobster lunch/dinner. This is living! (Oh dear, does Martha Stewart say that??)
Plans for tomorrow is to try to stay out of the village core with my vehicle because Saturday is supposed to be just crazy around here. Aha! The bus! That's always an alternative.
As I type the clouds are starting to gather and the fog is rolling in a bit. It's been humid all day and about 85 F. I really have no idea what that is in Celcius but it was nice in the shade.
Last full day in Maine tomorrow. Then off to New Hampshire and the White mountains...more to see!
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