Barred Islands

 

 

The city of Bar Harbor, Maine on Mt. Desert Island is familiar to most. The origin of Bar Harbor’s name is the substantial bar that appears at low tide between Bar Harbor and its tiny companion, Bar Island just to the north. At low tide, people and cars can be seen making their way across the bar to Bar Island and then in a timely fashion back. 

 

Since Maine’s landscape is forever changing multiple signs inform and insist that Bar Island be vacated before the tide begins to rise, and separates them from family and friends for the next 6 hours.

 

Maine has numerous other Bar and Barred Islands that are mostly obscure. As I write this, Carrie Rose is anchored in 27 feet at low tide between Big and Little Barred Islands. The Cabot family, who seem to own many of the places we anchor, owns these islands. Access to the various islands is either allowed or disallowed dependent on visitors past conduct. Here we are boat bound.

 

The Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast lists eight Bar Islands in its index but fails to mention any Barred Islands. A deeper perusal of the book reveals a Barred Island reference and even gives it a 4 star rating, its highest. One wonders as to the index’s neglect in listing the islands. Not being conspiratorial in nature, one does not wish to speculate as to the reason.

 

On the way to Big and Little Barred Islands from Warren Island State Park on West Penobscot Bay, several boats were seen anchored north of our path. Binoculars out, compass direction noted, and paper chart consulted revealing another pair of Barred Island situated slightly north of and between the diminutive Colt Island and the larger Beach Island. 

 

Both sets of Barred Islands possess a fatal flaw and it is exposure. Once the bars are submerged in high tide, there is no protection from the southwest, northeast, and for that matter north winds. The cruising guide bluntly states, “leave” if any of the above winds pipe up. 

 

Carrie Rose spent a comfortable if anxious day between the Barred islands as a southwest winds began to gust and whitecaps formed in the channel beyond the bar, then with twilight, the wind died and allowed for a quiet night and morning.

 

I appreciate that to my non-boating readers this obsession with Bar and Barred Islands may seem like minutiae, but alas, this is the nature of cruising in Maine.