The weather forecast for Sunday the 17th said that the coast would have warm weather and semi-clear skies; I decided to take advantage of the good news and told Robin that we were going to watch the sunrise on top of Cadillac Mountain- the first point in the US to see the sun. We got up at 2:30AM and left 30 minutes later.
We arrived a little over an hour later just on time, to our surprise there were roughly 60 people waiting for the sun to rise, had this been a mountain that you needed to climb up it would not have been the case. Robin and I did not dress properly, we had shorts and short sleeve shirts on and were very cold, a typical mistake that an out-of-Stater would make.
Unfortunately I did not bring my tripod so a few of my slow shutter speed shots did not come out as I had hoped. On the horizon sat a band of clouds that masked the sun rise from us, I was disappointed by that as well, however once the sun rose above the clouds the scene was beautiful and began to light up the pools of water on the granite, the pink granite itself as well as the entire mountain side. It’s amazing to see such an expanse of mountains and ocean as the burning orange sun rose over the Ocean reflecting over the Atlantic and exposing the North-Eastern mountainous span of bumps shrouded in fog. Despite a few let downs I still had a great time, this is a first for Robin and I; being wrapped up in a blanked on top of a mountain watching the sun rise was very romantic. God’s creation is magnificent!
I decided to head to Southwest Harbor to walk along the beach, look for any interesting things to photograph and or collect. For our future house we want the master bathroom to have an Ocean theme; while visiting Maine’s various coastal beaches we have collected Crab shells, Sea Urchins, Spike shells, Star fish, sea glass, Sand dollars etc. The tide was out which revealed many of the smooth rocks covered in barnacles, sea weed, kelp, etc. While looking for live Crabs, Robin pointed out a Seagull flying at a throw’s distance with a Crab in its mouth, I quickly pointed my camera and was able to snap a decent shot. I decided to head towards the area where the gulls were swimming and waited for them to catch another Crab. There were two Seagulls 10’ out swimming, one with its eye fixed downwards when suddenly it hopped an inch or two off the water and dived into the water with a crab in its beak. It then flew off and landed on the beach where another Seagull came over, the gull with the crab tore the legs off and then ate the remains of the meat.
I decided to wade in the water at knee depth looking for crabs but was unsuccessful at finding any crabs that were decently sized for eating- I did however find a sand dollar to add to our ocean theme.
On our way back to Bar Harbor I spotted a mushroom on the side of the road that resembled the Super Mario “power up” mushroom and stated to Robin, “That mushroom looks exactly like the Mario mushrooms!” She suggested that I turn around and take a photo of it or I would regret it later on, she was right so I turned around and took a photo of it; I later learned that it is the Fly ageric Mushroom.
We drove into downtown Bar Harbor and visited the many stores along the busy streets.