In the Right Place: Wonderful Secrets

Here’s another look at a WoodenBoat School sailing “classroom” that recently had several of us guessing – incorrectly – as to what kind of boat she was. WBS descriptions and some on-line research have revealed a few of her wonderful secrets.

She’s named “Petrel,” apparently after the seabird of the same name. Many of you probably know a lot about those fascinating birds that like to stay far out in rough seas. But I bet that only a few of you know a lot about a “Crotch Island Pinky” – which is the kind of bird that “Petrel” actually is.

Here’s part of the informative WBS description of “Petrel”:

“The Crotch Island Pinky is a 26’ double-ended open boat with a ‘cat-ketch’ rig and internal ballast. The type was developed in [Maine’s] Casco Bay in the 1880s and built in Yarmouth, Freeport, and Harpswell, as well as on Crotch (now Cliff) Island, just a few miles east of Portland. These boats were the pick-up trucks of their day, used for fishing and freight during the late 19th and early 20th century. Fast and powerful, their “easily driven hulls” and ample sail area made for safe, efficient work and travel among the rocky shores of Maine and beyond.”

Other sources reveal that large and small wooden “pinky vessels” or “pinky ships” were popular in the Gulf of Maine in days of yore due to their seaworthiness in rough seas and, especially, their ability to sail well to windward. 

The “pinky” design called for bluff (almost rounded) bows and very sharply tapered-down sterns. The boats reportedly got their strange nickname from those narrow sterns, which some thought looked like pinkies. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 28, 2025.)

In the Right Place: High-Summer

Here you see Conary Cove in one of its better looks on Saturday. A flood tide is just about to ebb on a brilliant, high-summer day, while a cooling breeze helps the surrounding lush leaves to cast undulating green shadows onto the smooth water:

If you look closely at this telephoto image, you’ll see that a pair of paddling adventurers had entered the Cove in a flashy vessel to take a close look at the old red boathouse.:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on July 26, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Summer Skimming

It’s getting to be prime time for dragonflies, always fascinating and frustrating subjects for photographers. Here you see what I think is a male slaty skimmer (Libellula incesta), which is native to the northeast U.S. and some of southern Canada.

I’ll probably be doing a major article on dragonflies in August, after I do further research on their amazing flying maneuvers. Speaking of flying maneuvers, here you’ll see this fellow leaving those desiccated flowers in a hurry, with his head apparently swiveled 90 degrees to look at me with both eyes, while his wings are positioned oddly to launch himself straight up:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 24, 2025.)

In the Right Place: A Ridge with a View

Here’s the iconic, high-summer view of Mount Desert Island (MDI) from Amen Ridge in Brooklin. You’ll have to imagine the capricious breezes that carried hints of salt and balsam fir toward the camera. The lupine flowers in the field have dried up in their fuzzy way, but the grasses and sedges there are still green and munchy for our white-tailed residents. A sea haze has turned the placid Blue Hill and Jericho Bays slate blue, while restless cumulus clouds roam northeast (to the left) over MDI’s hunched western mountains.

MDI is Maine’s largest island and is accessible by bridge. Most of Acadia National Park is on the island, which is otherwise ornamented with Down East towns and villages that are popular with tourists, including Bar Harbor, Bass Harbor/Tremont, Mount Desert/Somesville, Northeast Harbor, Seal Harbor, and Southwest Harbor. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 21, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Monarch Report

It hasn’t been a great year for monarch butterflies here yet, if my experience is typical. I’ve seen a few of them sipping from local milkweed and bee balm – usually one or two butterflies at a time; not large numbers. I’ve seen no eggs or caterpillars on the milkweed yet. Yet, the monarchs that I’ve seen seem to be in good shape.

Here you see a male monarch flitting among our pollinator-picked-over bee balm. Only the male monarchs have those matching, dark elliptical spots on their hind wings. The spots are thought to be scent glands that exude pheromones to attract females. (Hope this works better than aftershave lotion on human males.) The male monarchs also tend to have thinner black wing veins than the females.

I’m trying to “shoot” butterflies in flight with a hand-held camera and long lens. It can be painful and frustrating, but I think I’m noticing that many butterflies seem to fly with their bodies flexed horizontally when they undertake a long flight; it may be the best aerodynamic position for their unusual configurations:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 23, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XI

Above, you see Angelique anchored off Babson Island at sunset on Wednesday evening. This was her fourth visit this year. She overnighted there and was on a five-night cruise that is scheduled to culminate today with participation in the always-fabulous Camden [Maine] Classic Cup Regatta. She’s a 130-foot ketch and Camden happens to be her home port.

Yesterday morning, Angelique moved to the middle of Great Cove where she got a lot of attention from the WoodenBoat School sailing classes and other traffic there:

Angelique finally raised her famous tanbark-colored sails and pivoted out of the northern Cove exit:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 24, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Harmonies

For some of us, there seems to be nothing that captures the spirit of summer better than sailing a small boat and sensing your life coming into harmony with sunshine, wind, and blue water, and – for the moment – being unable to think of anything else.  

Here, you see the lucky novice students in the WoodenBoat School’s “Elements of Sailing I” class apparently doing just that Tuesday.

They’re learning to sail in the School’s 12 ½-foot Herreshoffs (with keels) and Havens (with centerboards), some of the most joyful vessels that ever got their bottoms wet.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 22, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Whole Bunch

Red bunchberries are emerging in bunches, from bunchberry plants, which have been bunching up since spring, when white flowers and bracts emerged from the plants in bunches. This wonderful wild groundcover is a member of the dogwood family.

Bunchberry’s high summer red berries were used by Native Americans for food and treatment of coughs, colic, fever, and stomach aches. They’re full of pectin and can make a passable jelly or jam, I hear. Birds, squirrels, deer, moose, and bears prefer these fruits fresh and raw.

The plant (Cornus canadensis) also is known as crackerberry, dwarf dogwood, creeping dogwood, ground dogwood, and Canadian dwarf cornel. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 22, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Joy of Youth

“Our” white-tail deer herd appears happy and healthy this year, albeit perhaps a bit too numerous for their own and our good. The seemingly boundless joy of the yearlings – not too old, not too young for the browsing life – is infectious. Here are images of what I’m fairly sure are yearling white-tails, a male (buck) and a female (doe):

A “yearling” actually is in the second year of life (about 1.5 years old). They’re slim and gangly, with disproportionately long legs and thin necks, compared to mature deer.

The young bucks, especially, look a little odd: like does that have had beginners’ antlers screwed into their heads:

At this time of year here, all deer antlers are new bone (not horn) that is covered by a nurturing “velvet” membrane that contains blood vessels, nerves, and skin tissue. Antlers covered by velvet reportedly are the fastest-growing tissue in the animal kingdom.  

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 13 and 20, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Color Me Insulated

Versant Power, the electricity utility in northern and eastern Maine, is replacing miles of bare wire strung from utility poles here. The new lines are “covered conductors,” which are transmission wires wrapped in insulated material. Judging from what I’ve seen on the poles, the new wire apparently is color-coded:

Covered conductors make the wire more resistant to damage that can be caused by falling trees and branches, thereby reducing electricity faults and outages. (Maine is the most forested state in the U.S., based on percentage of forested land.) “The number one cause of outages in our service territory is trees and branches,” according to a statement on the Versant website.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Bath Time

This has been a good year for our lavender, as you see. It has come up lush and full of nectar that has been attracting record numbers of pollinators.  Curiously, this herb’s intriguing fragrances seem to repel mosquitoes, flies, and other annoying insects, as well as deer. (After a rain, it sometimes smells of berry-scented soap to me.)

On the other hand, lavender has been attracting humans for many centuries. Its rich history includes use in ancient Egyptian embalming, Greek and Roman bath scenting, and modern aromatherapy to promote relaxation and improve sleep. It’s native to the Mediterranean region, Middle East, and parts of India.

The name "lavender" comes from the Latin word "lavare," meaning "to wash," an apparent reference to its historical use in bathwater. It’s a member of the mint family and reports indicate that there are over 45 species of the plant and 450 varieties cultivated in various colors. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 19, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch X

The gaff-rigged ketch “Angelique” was moored off of Little Babson Island in Great Cove when we awoke yesterday morning. She overnighted there and put her passengers ashore to tour the WoodenBoat School campus. Here you see her passengers returning from that tour yesterday.:

As you can see from the vessel’s flags, there were somewhat significant wind gusts then, perhaps  10-to-15-mile MPH, which apparently influenced her Captain to motor out of the Cove instead of raising the windjammer’s beautiful reddish tanbark-like sails. That was a disappointment.

“Angelique” is one of the few vessels in the windjammer fleet that have inboard motors. She’s young by fleet standards, having been designed for tourist cruising and been launched in 1980. She hails from Camden, Maine, and was on a four-night tour of Down East lighthouses, according to her schedule. This was her third visit to the Cove this season.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 18, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Rabble Rousing

You know it’s high summer when crowds of tawny daylilies line the streets and byways to wave hello at passersby.

These lovely rabble, despite their name, are not true lilies, genetically speaking. But who cares? They get their name from the fact that each flower usually lasts for only one day and looks lily-like. Fortunately, each plant has many buds, which usually insures a long-lasting greeting.

They’ll thrive almost everywhere and are bright spots in drought and on land needing erosion control. (In days of yore, they sometimes were called what amounted to “outhouse lilies,” with the word “outhouse” pronounced “sh__house.”) Nonetheless, they’re welcome here.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch IX

It’s foggy as I write and it’s been foggy every other early morning this week. This gives us all a chance to play that popular game known as “Name That Windjammer!” For example, can you name this windjammer that was in Great Cove yesterday morning just by looking at what the fog has let us see of her:

Here are some of the hints that are exposed: she’s large; she’s got two masts and they’re schooner-configured; her Captain keeps her mainsail up as a stay sail overnight; she flies a topsail, and her sails are white (which eliminates “Angelique”).

If you guessed the 145-foot Heritage out of Rockland, Maine, you would have been correct. As the fog lifted, her unique yellow hull with red, white and blue bands were revealed:

This is her third visit to the Cove this cruising season. She’s on a six-night “Full Moon” cruise, according to her sailing schedule. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 16, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Win-Win

Our red bee balm river is cresting in scented waves and it has attracted the first monarch butterfly that we’ve seen this year. I haven’t seen any monarchs or monarch eggs on milkweed yet, but now I have some confidence that they will come like late baseball players.

Bee balm, also called monarda, is a native North American plant. It looks good, smells good, attracts all sorts of pollinaters (including hummingbirds) and is generally deer-resistant.

The plant is part of the mint family and many people consume its flowers and leaves as salads and garnishes or in tea. After the Boston Tea Party, many rebelling colonists switched to “Oswego Tea” made of bee balm by Native Americans to avoid the imported and taxed British tea.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Beach Loading

Above, you see David Tarr’s Fishing Vessel “Tarrfish,” all cleaned up from the scalloping season and waiting at the Naskeag Harbor docking float for David to bring a load of lobster traps down to the Harbor. He soon came down with a trailer load of traps and took them to the adjacent beach on Naskeag Point.

“Tarrfish” soon came around and was beached beside the trailer. The traps were then handed up to David and his daughter on the boat. When all of the traps were stored on board, “Tarrfish” pulled back and returned to the docking float, probably waiting for another load.

The traps will be taken out into local sea waters, baited and set, and submerged in trap lines to capture the tasty little critters that are on the move now. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Deco Resto

Barbara and I went to Bar Harbor’s Criterion Theatre Saturday night to catch David Sedaris’s performance and see how the historic Art Deco Theatre’s restoration was going. (There also was the calamari and wine at Testa’s around the corner, but I digress.) Short report: Both David’s sardonic raconteuring and the Theatre’s historic facelifting were deserving of a standing ovation. It’s great to have that live performance venue nearby.

By the way, for Jimmy (“Margaritaville”) Buffet fans who have studied the accompanying image of the entrance to the Criterion: That’s not a typo on the marquee, “Jammy Buffet” is  the name of an unrelated tribute band that played at the Theatre yesterday night.

The Theatre was opened in 1932 by a well-off resident who had served a jail term for bootlegging. Its smartly-decorated premises reportedly included a then-modern floating balcony, a state-of-the-art “Inter-Phone” system, and a basement “speakeasy.” It apparently is one of only two extant Art Deco theaters in Maine.  

The Criterion’s restoration is a courageous undertaking and still a work in progress, as well as a learning process. (Saturday’s sound and lights had to be corrected early in David’s talk.) And, of course, David was courageously hilarious in his unique takes on life and his ridiculous dress – he wore a white imprinted sport coat and bright red, knee-length “balloon pants.”

(Images taken in Bar Harbor, Maine, on July 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Ready or Not

The milkweed around here has been ready, willing, and able to please monarch butterflies for more than a week – lush leaves to lay eggs on, nectar-filled blossoms to sip from, and the heavy, sweet scent of musky perfume to put all pollinators in the mood.

Yet, I haven’t seen a monarch or a monarch egg yet. I’ve seen one FaceBook report of one monarch seen in Brooklin so far this summer. Let’s hope that the migration is only late and not suffering again. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9 and 11, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Counting on You

This image of common a loon appears with my monthly column in the current edition of the Ellsworth American.  Click on the image to enlarge it. To read the column about what Maine loons are doing now and how you can join an outdoor adventure to count them, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Hunting the Buck Moon

The July full moon is called “The Buck Moon” because it occurs when male deer start to get their antlers. Unfortunately, The Buck Moon “rose” last night and we couldn’t see it here due to overcast and fog.

But I did “shoot” a local buck yesterday afternoon. And I did “shoot” the July 9 moon that was full as far as the unaided human eye can see.  And I did merge those two images into this image and fiddled with the moon color a bit:

And I am posting an “unfiddled-wlth” image of the July 9 full moon as it rose over Great Cove:

Perhaps I should note that the new July antlers of white-tailed deer are covered in nurturing “velvet.” That’s a living membrane of soft, hairy skin that’s rich in blood vessels and nerves, providing nutrients and protection for the developing antler bone. The velvet will be rubbed off and otherwise shed once the antlers are fully formed and hardened. 

(Moon and buck image taken separately in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9 and 10, 2025, and merged in processing.)