Day 13 - The beginning of the end & We're gonna die

Today we decided to break fast at the restaurant in Southwest Harbor where we dined for lunch the previous day - Pick-A-Pita. Wow! Most excellent. Blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup. Oooooohhh! Stuffed blueberry French toast. Aaaaahhhh! Chocolate chip pancakes. Uuuuhhhmmm...kids, gotta love 'em.


Anyway, breakfast was delicious. Those folks can do the blueberry-themed breakfasts.


From there, we ventured to Seawall. Though simple, that there is some scenery:

For some reason, one member of our group felt that his visit should be memorialized in a statue and offered to pose for what he thought it should be. I'll let you guess who...

Next, we drove over to see the Bass Harbor lighthouse. This one is still manned and the home is lived in by a coast guard member. This first photo of the lighthouse we took later from the water - more on that in a moment.

Having walked off breakfast a bit, we went to visit a friend of knucklehead - this was his best friend from first grade through high school. He had offered to take the crew out on a boat ride, which was readily accepted (thus the preceding photo of the lighthouse from the water).

Mr John took the crew out from Bass Harbor and headed for some islands. Lo - look what we saw (you never have a club when you need one)!

While they were watching the fat-factories, I was keeping an eye on the horizon. For all the good it does - nobody listens to me! Oh - is that fog?

Why, yes! I think it is fog!!!!

Apparently, it's not something we need to worry about. Right. Visibility in all directions is like 100 yards! We're gonna die!

So, in my typical "devil-may-care" way,I suggest we go on. Next, we were shown a salmon farm. They have these large suspended circular net things where they grow commercial salmon (as opposed to wild salmon). I guess this is a good spot because of the movement of water due to the tides.

Speaking of tides, I think the tidal changes in this area are around 20 feet! That means the water from low tide to high tide rises by 20 vertical feet. That is just amazing! A short distance further "Down East" at the Bay of Fundy, the tides changes 45 - 50 feet! OMG! Imagine the rush of water to change by 45 feet every 12 hours! The Bay of Fundy has the largest tidal change on Earth.


Next, in my daring-do manner, we beach on an island for a bit of beach combing. We found a few pieces of sea glass, which is just broken glass that has been buffed by the pounding of the surf and the stones. Oh, and some rocks. (That's Mr John on the left in the picture below.)

After an hour or so of that, I guided the people back to dock in Bass Harbor. Everyone just loved the boat ride and getting to see the seals.


Later that evening, we visited Mr John and his family and played with Wally the dog. He does tricks! Then we all went to dinner at Scottie's Warfside Restaurant. By then it was dark. As we were finishing our meal, the sky opened up with some wicked fierce rain and lightning. It just poured! We had to run out of the restaurant when we were finished (around 11pm) and carefully drive back to the house. And, go figure, knucklehead gave a wrong direction and after a mile or so we had to take out the GPS to get home. But we made it without casualty.


And so ended another long day at Mount Desert Island, Maine. We got home and went to bed for an early morning.