Saturday, July 10, 2010

Vacation - Week #1

Just got back this morning from a week at Popham Beach.  It's the second year we've spent the week of July 4th there.  We rent a little one room cottage with a deck that overlooks the ocean.  I love hearing the constant lapping of the waves all night long.  If we leave the curtain open we can see the ocean right from bed.





I took an early morning walk down the beach and sat in the lifeguard station and drank my coffee.  That island you can see in the distance is accessible via a sandbar at low tide.


On Friday Rick and I did the short hike up to Fort Baldwin and climbed the tower hoping for some fantastic views.  Unfortunately, the trees have grown up so much in that area that the views are just of foliage.




We probably wouldn't have seen much anyway as it was a fairly foggy day.

The first five days the weather was sunny with temps into the 80s and 90s.  The fog didn't move in until Thursday and Friday though it gave us a brief break on both days.  I read two books:  The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo by Steig Larsson and Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer.  The latter takes place on an island off Stonington, Maine so it seemed particularly apropros.

Lots of music around the campfire at night with the NitPickers and others who happened by.  And a great fireworks display for the 4th.  We thought we put on a pretty good show but was matched by one other group on the beach and actually outdone by another.  I think between the many parties shooting off (illegal) fireworks we got as good a show as any I've seen in recent years.

This part of the coast is not great for kayaking.  I tried it there last year and found it very difficult to  maneuver due to the shallow water and breaking waves.  It's been a couple of years since I really had a good ocean paddle.  We talked about whether to look for a different location for our oceanside vacation for next year - perhaps around Stonington where the kayaking is good - but decided to go ahead and book the cottage for another year.  Maybe we can go to Stonington for a day or two and do a guided kayak tour around the islands.  Rick has never ocean kayaked and doesn't have an ocean kayak so he'd need to rent one.  And I'd feel better if I wasn't the most experienced person in the group.

Overall a nice week but it will also feel great to sleep in our own bed tonight.

1 comment:

Rick Dale, author of The Beat Handbook said...

The nice thing is we are near enough to the ocean that we can get there for short trips.