Cold and miserable, rain and fog . . . then a strong SW wind blows it out and replaces it with a warm breeze. The sun peaks out of the clouds as it should on this longest day of the years. The light is pure in Maine. There is no forest fire smoke, no pollution from industry, cars hardly matter even during the height of tourist season. The sun shines through the atmosphere unimpeded and onto Carrie Rose’s roof top bank of silicon.
The SW breeze strengthens and drags waves of black clouds over the harbor and disperse them out onto the Gulf of Maine but not before covering the pilothouse’s windows with a light drizzle.
In years past the harbor was packed with schools of fish. And following them were seals, cormorants, porpoises, osprey, eagles and equally rapacious, fishermen. This year no fish, so only a lone seal and cormorant cohabitate with us. An eagle swept in off the northern cliff, above the houses, took a cursory inventory of the surrounding waters and after a short visit to a lobster boat flew back over the hill.
NE Harbor is protected from most directions except maybe the South in a serious blow. Today the worst of the wind rattles Carrie Rose’s wooden doors just to let us know it is there, and not to try and confront it. More than one sailor has been lured out into disaster while sitting in a calm harbor.
It won’t be us, this time at least. We are not going anywhere except maybe into town to buy something trivial as an excuse to go for a walk. As I stand here in the pilothouse this longest day I can see seven American flags each straining to the strong wind gusts. Rhetorically at least, there seems to be a lot of that going on this summer….
Northeast Harbor, ME
2 comments:
Well… you’re missing nothing here except hot, blustery 90+ weather. Could use a few breezes!! Nothing but AC - too hot to even open a window. Yay Maine! Charlie’s wedding this weekend… we’re glad it’s all scheduled for INSIDE ❤️👍
Interesting that there aren't fish. What would cause that?
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