You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
I do wonder about this scuttled auto ferry seen from a trail at Roque Beach State Park. It’s far from any center of population, and there’s no remaining top structure.
Was it scavenged before being abandoned? Or even after? Did it fall victim to fire? Or a storm? Somehow it was run aground along what’s now thick forest.
It’s a common topic of conversation this time of year in New England.
How’s the foliage shaping up?
Are drought or wetness, heat or cold, or any number of other factors impacting it negatively?
Or is it going to be another banner month across the six-state region?
Vermont and New Hampshire tourism tries to capitalize the most from the colorful outburst, but they’re hardly alone in sometimes dazzling displays. New York and Pennsylvania can also be memorable.
So here we are, trying to make the most of the outdoors before winter cold sets in all too soon.
What’s it like where you are?
As many fish stocks dwindle precariously, salmon farming and related aquaculture are hailed as a viable alternative.
Young salmon are placed in the circular enclosures when they’re about six inches long, where they leap and splash under netting that protects them from eagles, osprey, cormorants, and gulls. In about two years, they grow to a harvestable size of about two feet and ten pounds. A specially designed vessel sucks the mature fish from their pens and its conveyor stream immediately cleans and guts them.
Cooke Aquaculture, based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, manages 15 pens in Deep Cove and Broad Cove, operating from a former fertilizer plant on Estes Head. A feeding barge sits amid the pens, which house about 450,000 salmon. About one-third of the pens are left fallow at any time.
From our upstairs windows, we can see other salmon farms at Campobello Island across the channel.
As for recipes? I’ll often make mine as sashimi.
We were anticipating the expedition cruise ship Roald Amundsen’s arrival at the Breakwater today after it had circled Alaska, crossed the Arctic Ocean, and visited Greenland and Baffin Bay on an intrepid voyage from Vancouver, British Columbia, across the Northwest Passage – albeit from the west. But when that itinerary was halved, and the second leg shortened, we were crossed off the ports of call. At least we were then added to a shorter round of New England stopovers that followed.
So now the Amundsen is expected to show up today and you can bet that the locals will be lined up for a personal look. This is not any floating resort.
With global warming, Northwest Passage trips are being offered each year for bold, well-healed, bucket-list travelers desiring to go where few have ventured before. This opportunity requires ice-breakers, not just any cruise ship. The Norwegian-flagged Amundsen is one with style and luxury.
The visit should heighten our anticipation of its return next September as part of a remarkable 94-day Pole-to-Pole adventure that will continue to Antarctica.
Sounds like a historic journey to me.
Here are ten more facts.
If you had the money, is this something you’d love to do?
Refined Japanese, I’m told, would gather with sake to watch the full moon rise. First there’s only the crown of the head, and then the brow and cheeks and chin before the moon lifts altogether in the air. The passage is both slow and fleet, maybe five minutes, if that.
The event would be celebrated with the writing of hokku on the spot.
Here’s how it happened one summer night in Eastport, looking over Campobello Island. And this is what you get rather than a cocktail or poem.
According to the map, it looked like a good road. I had just taken a lovely, very smooth one a few miles to the east, so I expected to enjoy more of the same. But when the pavement abruptly ended, I kept going. After fifteen or twenty miles of encountering no house or other vehicle, I finally came out on the state highway – one of three paved roads running east-west across the county. I did have to back up at one point and try the one intersecting logging road I encountered. Good thing my little Sonic has a compass on the dashboard array. It’s easy to get disoriented in hilly wilds.
Welcome to Washington County, Maine.
The drive had me remembering forays into the logging back country of the Pacific Northwest or even a “shortcut” in the ’50s along Devil’s Ridge in southern Indiana that was pure hillbilly, uh, perfection. I think that route’s long since been covered in asphalt. What a shame – it was timeless.
Long ago, I learned you can’t always trust maps, no matter how much you need them. A tourist site like a commercial cavern might be indicated on the wrong side of the road, or there might be a circle for a village that today is no more than a trio of houses.
Still, they’re pretty essential. As I said, there was one intersection on this trek where my car’s compass had me confounded. Checking the map, I realized I should have turned left and headed south, so I turned about and course-corrected. Good thing, too. According to the map, I would have spent the rest of the day heading into the sunset on a rocky dirt lane.
If I keep this up, I really will need to get a battered pickup or four-wheel-drive SUV.
Named for Upham Stowers Treat, the island once housed a fishing hamlet and then a Civil War battery. Today, as one of the Maine Coastal Heritage Trust preserves, it’s open to the public and has a 1.2-mile network of trails offering stunning views of the surrounding bays.
Kayakers are advised to get a guide who knows the waters’ treacherous currents.
Jnana's Red Barn 