Flashes of Panic

You know how, in some cartoons, you see characters walking around with a little black cloud which only appears to be raining on them?

Today, it seemed like anywhere inland was overcast, possibly raining. Any anywhere on the water was sunny and beautiful. I hadn’t been around to Boothbay by boat for around twenty years. I think if I smile much longer my face will cramp up.

We were the first to find a geocache recently placed on Squirrel Island. Since you need to take a ferry out to the island, I think most cachers have opted not to try, but for us it was the excuse for the trip. The island makes Nantucket look like a crowded, booming metropolis. Dirt roads, sidewalk and boardwalk. My father pointed out that much of the boardwalk was done in mahogany, not pressure-treated pine. Easy on bare feet, but imagine what it must cost. We spotted three pickup trucks as the only vehicles on the island; kayaks outnumber cars by an order of magnitude, and probably outnumber bicycles.

You don’t see many “For Sale” signs outside houses on Squirrel Island. Probably when one goes up for sale, it’s advertised only in high-end magazines. Assuming it’s advertised. I think I would spend my summers there, if I won a lottery. Or two.

I don’t know enough about sailboats to identify the class (classes?) who were racing today, but when we came out of the island and headed for home, they had a good breeze and looked like they were having a roaring good time. There was a buoy out, but looking back after we passed through Newagen, I saw several out beyond where I would have expected the buoy was. Maybe they were headed out to Damriscove.

There are three juvenile ospreys in the nest on the day beacon in Newagen harbor. They can whine all they want, but they’re going to have to jump eventually.

When we came in to Cundy’s Harbor for gas, the dock attendants waved us off. “The power’s out,” they explained. Apparently they’d been dark since one o’clock, and they claimed the Wal-Mart in Brunswick was closed as well. Thunderstorms inland, probably, which we could hear from the mooring.

As I write this, there are swells under the chair I’m sitting in.