Day 53, 9 July

1 visitor

Cynthia and her brother Karl from Alaska

We did not go ashore today since the sea state was still in small craft warning stage. Ethan told us the evening prior that we would not be going. That was ok with us since we wanted to spend time with Karl and Lori. We had a nice big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, English muffins and strawberries. The day was windy and we had only one visitor, a young man on his sailboat who spent the night in the cove. We were supposed to have paying guests arrive but due to the seas they could not and moved their reservation to Thursday night, which they later cancelled. Karl and Lori did some shopping in the gift store and gave a generous donation. We had a late lunch of President Ronald Reagan’s Macaroni and Cheese. I made this dish from a recipe I found in one of the cookbooks that was here. It turned out pretty good and for dessert we had grapefruit. After lunch Karl, Fred and I decided to hike down the North trail. Lori’s knees were hurting and she decided to relax and read. When we set out to hike, our lone visitor showed up and Fred gave him a tour while Karl and I set out on the trail. We encountered some baby seagulls on the high bluff vista point and didn’t go up there because of the babies. We saw another baby scurrying down the right leg of the loop so we went left. As we went ahead in the trail I found a small young bird injured in the trail and picked him up. It was a very small bird and upon examination he was bleeding a bit and quickly died in my hand. I felt so sad for the poor little creature and was concerned that we might have stepped on him in the trail with the overhanging grasses obscuring the trail. I carried him up a bit to a nice spot off the edge of a large rock and gently laid him to rest in some dried grass. The late sun shone on him peacefully and sadly beautifully in the illuminated grass. I was still very sad at the mishap and we were much more careful walking on the trails. We continued to the vista point at the end of the loop and went down to the rock cliffs to enjoy the views. I ventured out even further to a set of rock cliffs that I had wanted to go to for awhile. Here you can look down directly on the crashing waves and see the cove from here and dramatic, classic Maine coastline. Karl ventured out and joined me at this far point. Fred then suddenly appeared and joined us also. We sat and enjoyed the spectacular scenery. Karl was standing between us, a little lower down. A big swell came in and hit just right to splash a bit on Karl. We moved back a bit and the waves stayed more subdued. We went back to the other side of the point down on some rock areas closer to sea level and poked around. I took pictures of Karl and Fred on the rock ledge that was next to the one I was on. I later joined them and we enjoyed the views from this site. Again another wave splashed a bit on Karl and we retreated a bit. He seemed to be a magnet for the waves. We eventually crawled back up to the trail and continued on the loop to make our way back to where the loop junction was. There again was the baby seagull we saw before, this time he was scurrying down to the left side of the loop where we had walked previously. We went back up the steep trail to the vista point and again did not go up there since the babies were still there on the horizon. These two were pretty good sized and I saw the adult nuzzling one of them. Onward we went where we saw another young seagull scurrying into the brush from the trail and back to the house where we met Lori who told us the lone visitor that Fred had hosted had gone cross-country under the tram to hike back to the cove. Strange as to why he would do that, especially with poison ivy all over the terrain.

Seagull and two chicks at vista on North Trail

We relaxed a bit and I knit some before Lori made a salad and Fred grilled up some salmon that we had with lemon, butter dill sauce or fresh mango salsa. We tried to relax a bit after our late dinner but quickly got tired and went off to sleep. It was still saddened by the death of the little bird and couldn’t stop thinking of him as I drifted fitfully off to slumber.

I did notice a bit of rain on the window before retiring and the faint sound of thunder.