Before kicking off my work day, we made the short hop on a windless morning past Stonington and over to Hells Half Acre. I was curious to see whether I’d love it as much on a second visit, and the answer was a resounding “Hell yes”.
Windara was the only boat there, and I was equal parts bummed and happy to see there was a kayak group camping on the island. It meant that if we went ashore, we’d not have it to ourselves, but at the same time, I was glad to see people enjoying this gem along the Maine Island Trail. (Even though it turned out to be a group of noisy teens on some kind of summer camp-type outing, I’m sure it was a great experience for them and if it instills a love of and respect for nature, I’m all for it.)
There’s a tiny unnamed island off of Devil Island with just a few pine trees on it, and it inspired me to break out my watercolors and try to paint it. It was hot out, so my paints dried quickly and I needed to work faster than I would have liked, but it was my first plein air attempt, and I’m happy with the result. Later in the day, we took a dinghy ride around Bold Island and enjoyed the pretty coastline (there’s a house on the island, so we assumed it’s privately owned and didn’t go ashore). I never noticed before, but the channel between Hells Half Acre and Devil Island gets incredibly shallow at low tide, and it was neat to see the landscape from such a different angle.
The kayak group finally left on Thursday morning just before 9am, and I took advantage of work being slow to spend some time ashore. I stopped to sign the guest book and took lots of time to photograph the wild flowers and seaweed. I really don’t know what it is about this tiny little island, but to me it’s just magical.
We’d been looking forward to having a small fire and making s’mores, so we went back after work even though it had gotten cold and gray. We’d never been ashore with the tide almost completely out before, and it was like exploring a whole new landscape. We found a spot below the high tide mark that was sheltered enough from the breeze, gathered a few sticks and some dried seaweed, and got our little fire started. It was just big enough to keep us warm and let us toast up a few marshmallows, and we made sure to burn it entirely to ash.
By the time we left, the sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds, and when it came out, Hells Half Acre and Devil Island were bathed in beautiful golden light. The clearing clouds made for an absolutely stunning sunset.
Early yesterday morning, we reluctantly hauled anchor. We were sad to say goodbye, but the weekend forecast is for rain and possibly strong winds, so it was time to move on. And I’m excited to be back at MDI. We broke up the trip into two runs – first, we got an early start to anchor up near the ferry dock at Swans Island so I could take a meeting and wrap up a few loose ends before my vacation started. Once that was done, we had a beautiful sail over to MDI and up to Abels, where we’d reserved a mooring for the night. As we entered the fjard (a smaller, shallower version of a fjord) at Somes Sound, we passed a field full of lupines, which I’ve been obsessed with this summer.
Once settled on our mooring, we decided to kick off our vacation with dinner at Abel’s Lobster – Chris had a lobster, I had lobster bisque, and of course we had to share a slice of their blueberry pie. Let vacation begin!
