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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Peaks Island - by lucky accident

Well, we've been a bit quiet on the blog because life has been very full recently. We visited Portland because my parents were getting the train back to Boston from there, and we found it so nice we stayed a bit longer. It's more of a small town than city, just seventy thousand people and a lovely friendly place.

Yesterday we took a long time to get laundry done and then Gesa felt unwell so lay down for a couple of hours to let a headache pass. Because of this, we didn't depart until about four pm, aiming for a short hour and a half journey to Jewell Island, supposedly beautiful. By this time, a nasty looking thunderstorm was gathering over the city and we were pleased to leave before it hit, but the thing appeared to be following us. Within a few minutes, the coastguard issued a severe thunderstorm warning on the radio and we decided to cut short and anchor at Cushing Island, just three miles from downtown Portland. The storm passed with little more than a bit of rain and thunder then gave way to a beautiful still evening where we rocked gently in the sheltered cove and watched a beautiful schooner drift past under full sail.

As morning rolled around, it had changed again (Maine is like Ireland, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change) and the day dawned grey and cold with the wind from the north east, the only direction that our anchorage wasn't sheltered from. So we were being bounced a little and our intended direction was, sadly, right towards the wind.

We decided to move a half mile to a nice calm spot behind nearby Peaks Island (you need Google Earth to see what I mean about these islands, so close, small and sheltered just a few miles from the city) That was much better and we had breakfast in the calm waters. The kids played for a bit before we finally got ashore just before noon. We walked through the small village and found a great playground where Issie and Max had a lot of fun before we headed back. Stopping at the library, we saw two interesting notices. One for a 'movie night' tonight, showing two films at six and eight pm. The other for a 'community breakfast' from eight in the morning. Hey, we thought, we could stay and extra day, bring the kids to the first movie and go to the breakfast. So we're doing just that.

The movie was great, 'Howl's Moving Castle' by the master Japanese animator who's name escapes me right now - he did 'Spirited Away' too. We enjoyed it and the kids followed much of it without being too scared or bored, not bad for a two hour show. The audience was us four and one other, the kids lay on a rug to watch the film and it was like being in someone's front room! Free too.

Tomorrow we'll go to the breakfast and get another taste of local island life - this place has a mix of residents, summer visitors and day trippers who come in their hoards by ferry. The breakfast is before the ferry arrives, deliberately, so it'll be a more interesting affair, I sense. Then it's on to Bailey Island, I think, but that's just a plan and as we've seen, plans change.

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2 Comments:

Blogger marcia said...

Hi,
good to see you're all well and enjoying yourselves!!!
I actually did have a look at Google Earth to see where you are - and I love the names of all those little islands; easy to imagine a story for each one :-)
I'll be in touch!
Take care,
Marcia

1:59 pm  
Blogger Guy Lipof said...

Great posting! I'm missing New England, especially today. I hope you are somewhere nice for the 4th. Do they still take out Old Ironsides in Boston Harbor? It suffered fire damage sometime back. Nevertheless fireworks over the harbor would be awesome.

Best regards and hugs to all... Guy

11:44 am  

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