In the Right Place: FVs at Rest

The coastal lobster season is in full swing during August and prices to the fishermen reportedly are at comfortable levels now. But Sunday usually is a day of rest for the hard-working crews and fishing vessels.

On a recent Sunday, I took “portraits” of all eight of the FVs in Naskeag Harbor as they rested on reflective waters and basked in the beautiful golden light of near-sundown. One of the reasons that lobster boats are fascinating to some of us is that, unlike trucks, they come in an almost infinite number of sizes and personalities, perhaps in part reflecting their owners’ ways and means. Here are the differing eight:

Captain Morgan

Dear Abbie:

Dream On

Judith Ann

Knotty Problem

Meghan Dee

Poor Beagle

Tarrfish

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 10, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Iconic

Here you see the old red boat house watching the still-incoming high tide turning green as it rolls slowly into Conary Cove on a recent sunny August day. A slight breeze that gently strokes the leaves seems to create a repeated whisper: “High Summer in Down East Maine.” Iconic.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on August 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XVII

GRACE BAILEY snuck into Great Cove last week and decided to overnight as part of an eclectic quartet. The scene looked like a model collection of contrasting 19th and 20th Century vessels:

Clockwise at about 9 o’clock in this image you see a very tall-masted cruiser with the hull name SIRENA BELLA (“beautiful mermaid,” I guess), but no listed home port that I could see. (She looks to me like the old Ted Hood PATIENCE.)

At about 12 o’clock, there’s GRACE dominating the scene, a 118-foot schooner built in 1882 and now hailing from Camden, Maine. Her schedule says that she was on a “Six-Night Adventure,” which apparently included sleeping with strangers.

At about 3 o’clock, there’s one of the WoodenBoat School’s fleet of small sailing classrooms; this one looks to be a Caladonia’ Yawl with its aft mast down.

And, at about six o’clock, in the foreground, is a sleek little Brooklin, Maine, runabout/sport boat named RIVER BIRD, owned by Jon Wilson, founder of WoodenBoat. She reportedly is a recrafted Chris-Craft.

At mid-day Thursday, GRACE raised sails in a light wind and slowly paraded past a WBS “parking lot” to create another contrasting scene before she departed the Cove:

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

In the Right Place: A Royal Birth

Here you see a happy occasion at our house: the joyful “birth” of the first little bloom on a pair of clematis plants that Barbara put in this summer at the base of a deck trellis. They were treated with plenty of TLC in the hope that they would “take,” which they have done . Here’s an enhanced image:

The new raspberry-sherbet-colored clematises were put on either side of a well-established blue clematis that climbs full and tall every year. They replaced climbing roses that, sadly, could not survive the vicissitudes of Maine weather and/or that location.

The plant reportedly was named after the Greek word "klematis" (or klēmatis) which means "climbing plant" or "vine." Depending on location, clematises are known as either the “kings” or “queens” of vines due to their fast-climbing ability and great variety of colors. They have a relatively long flowering period that is helpful to hungry pollinators and admiring people.

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

In the Right Place: On Viewing Dragons

This 12-spotted dragonfly appears in my monthly column in the current edition of the Ellsworth American. To read the column about the evolution of dragonflies from prehistoric monsters, to mythical devils, to models for drones, use this link: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XVI

Here you see the 130-foot ketch ANGELIQUE in Great Cove Monday, where she overnighted. In this image, she’s just weighed anchor and is wheeling around to sail north (to your right) into Eggemoggin Reach, but there was a problem.

There was virtually no wind and it took ANGELIQUE more than half an hour for her massive sails to pick up the occasional whiffs and drift out of the Cove. Even the small WoodenBoat School sailboats had to be paddled back to their moorings due to lack of wind:

ANGELIQUE was launched in 1980 as a tourist cruiser and home ports in Camden, Maine. This was her fifth visit to the Cove this season, as far as I’ve seen. She was on a five-night Perseids Meteor Showers cruise during which, her schedule said, she would “Anchor in dark harbors and [passengers would] sit on the fantail to enjoy the celestial show….”

As many of you know, in this context, a fantail is not a pigeon; it’s an overhanging, fan-shaped part of the stern that some vessels have. The term reportedly was adopted in American English for certain maritime vessels during the 1800s, especially warships, ocean liners, and larger yachts.   (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 11, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Tale of a Tiger

Exotic tiger lily flowers have been appearing here for several days now. The literature states that they received their name because of their orange color with dark spots.

I’ve never seen a spotted tiger, but being half correct isn’t that bad when it comes to flower names. Their scientific name, Lilium lancifolium, is spot on (so to speak): it literally means "lily with lance-shaped leaves."

Tiger lilies originated in Asia, but are now cultivated around the world and have naturalized themselves in some areas. Unlike most flowering plants, they rely on bulb-like growths instead of seeds to reproduce themselves. These dark “bulbils” grow in leaf axils until ready to drop off and start a new plant.

The flowers are edible to humans, but reportedly are “toxic to cats.” I wonder if that includes tigers? (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XV

Here you see the schooner AMERICAN EAGLE departing Great Cove on Sunday after overnighting there for the third time this coastal cruising season that I’ve seen. She was on a multi-day “Yoga & Sailing” cruise with “guided yoga and mindfullness sessions in mornings or evenings,” according to her schedule.

In 1930, when she was launched in Gloucester, Massachusetts, there probably were few people on deck doing the Downward-Facing Dog pose on a brightly-colored yoga mat. (Just a hunch.) Then, she was the Atlantic Ocean fishing schooner ANDREW & ROSALIE. She was renamed the AMERICAN EAGLE in 1941 by new fishing owners when World War II was brewing.

In 1984, the old and worn fishing schooner was purchased again and underwent a two-year, complete restoration in Rockland, Maine, to convert her into a 123-foot tourist cruiser. She was relaunched as a bright and classy coastal cruiser in April of 1986. She still hails from Rockland. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 10, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Full Time

Here you see the August full moon rising orange and big over Jericho Bay Saturday night. As it rose, it transformed from red-orange into hues of lighter and lighter yellow until it was high enough to become a bright white spotlight. It then cast a glittering probe into Naskeag Harbor:

It was almost close enough to be a supermoon that night. Its early orange and yellowish colors were caused by its low position in the sky, which forces the early moonlight to come to us through more of the summer’s hazy-gritty atmosphere. That pollution scatters shorter blue wavelengths and lets longer red and orange wavelengths reach us.

It was sailing away over Great Cove before dawn the next morning:

The August full moon most often is called the Sturgeon Moon, reportedly a translation from the Native American fishing tribes that depended on those prehistoric-looking fish to rise and run in lakes and rivers now. Other common names for our fully-illuminated companion in August are Grain Moon, Green Corn Moon, and Red Moon. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 9 and 10. 2025.)

In the Right Place: Eat Your Heart Out

The late Roger Angell came to mind when I saw this small boat sailing in Great Cove recently. I think that it might be SEAL, a “12 ½” (foot at the waterline) Herreshoff used by the WoodenBoat School to teach sailing.

As you may know, Roger was a senior editor and writer at the New Yorker Magazine and beloved summer resident of Brooklin, Maine, among other significant things. He wrote the following in the Magazine about sailing on his 12 ½ Herreshoff, SHADOW, with a “nonsailing friend” in the waters off Brooklin:

“It can’t be helped, but sailing is exclusive. What the landsman senses and perhaps envies is exactly what grabs me at odd moments in a small boat in August. Here – for the length of this puff, this lift and heel – I am almost in touch with the motions of my planet: not at one with them but riding a little crest and enjoying the view. I smile across at my friend but say nothing. Eat your heart out, pal.”

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 3, 2025.) Click on the image to enlarge it.

In the Right Place: Berry Bounty

Viburnum berries soon will fuel many of the birds that will start migrating in late summer and fall. Some migrating birds may already have started to switch from protein-based insect diets to the higher-energy, fatty berries on viburnum and other berry bushes. The fat content of various viburnum bushes apparently varies and some reports state that native American viburnums have the highest.

I think that the plant shown here is a nonnative doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum). It has multitudes of large white flowers in spring and even more red and black berries starting in August.

This bush that you see has attracted many of our feathered friends in the late summer and fall. Sometimes we see swarms of berry-gulping birds, especially cedar waxwings and robins. During the winter, resident birds and, sometimes, desperate red squirrels munch on the leftovers until they’re gone. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 4, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Cat on a Toxic Roof

I saw this little fellow – my first Monarch butterfly caterpillar of the year – yesterday. He’s the only one that I could find in the large plot of common milkweed that Sherry Streeter is cultivating to nurture this troubled species. The toxic leaves from plants in the milkweed family (wild and cultivated) are the only foods that Monarch caterpillars eat.

Nonetheless, I’ve been seeing a good number of Monarch butterflies for several weeks. While many of the nectar-producing flowers on milkweed and other plants have faded, our liatris (blazing star) is blooming and attracting them:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 3 and 7, 2025; sex of caterpillar assumed.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XIV

There was a 2-for-1 “Sail” here yesterday. It began Tuesday when the sleek J&E RIGGIN slid into Great Cove during a hazy dusk:

She anchored off Babson Island and spent the night. The following morning’s dawn light found her asleep in Great Cove. She soon woke up, raised sails, and headed out at mid-day:

As the RIGGIN was going out of the Cove, old STEPHEN TABER came in. They hailed each other in passing:

The TABER circled the Cove looking for a good acnchorage in the incoming tide. Her maneuvers were a joy to watch:

She stayed only a few hours in the Cove, perhaps to allow her passengers to tour the WoodenBoat School campus there.

The RIGGIN is a 120-foot schooner out of Rockport, Maine, that was launched in 1927. According to her schedule, she was on – don’t laugh – a “Maine Knitting Retreat.” (You’d be surprised at how many knitters, male and female, there are.)

The TABER is a 110-foot schooner out of Rockland that was launched in 1871. She reportedly was on a “Captain’s Choice” cruise of Co-Captain Noah Barnes’s favorite spots. (His wife Jane apparently is the other Captain.)

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 7, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Feeling Very Zen

This colorless growth is uncommon, but not rare; it is mushroom-like, but is a plant; it was Emily Dickenson’s favorite wildflower, but was considered by Native Americans as spirits of the dead, and it recently has accumulated cultish followers who reportedly are causing a raging health controversy.

It’s Monotropa uniflora, more commonly called Indian pipe, ghost pipe, corpse pipe, corpse plant, ghost flower, and/or ice plant. It is a wildflower that amazingly survives without chlorophyll for photosynthesis. Instead, it gets its nutrients from a parasitic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. It’s usually porcelain white, but sometimes grows pinkish or (rarely) reddish in certain soils.

According to a Native American legend, the plant was the ghosts of warring chiefs who smoked peace pipes, but refused to compromise and make peace. The Great Spirit turned them into a colorless group that didn’t warrant attention. But Emily paid attention to them by collecting them and considering them “the preferred flower of life” (whatever that means).

In May, the Washington Post published a lengthy report by Ashley Stimson on a raging debate in the social media among foragers and outdoors enthusiasts over Indian pipe’s benefits or lack thereof. The plant reportedly is being promoted as a nutrient supplement that will make you “feel very Zen,” kill pain, and treat anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, migraines, and muscle spasms.

I’m not recommending that you consume it. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Non-Video Games

I’ve been playing a new game this week with Betty. She’s a summer resident here who lives down by the ponds, where the branches of the swamp maples and speckled alders overarch the path a bit. When I get there, I whisper in my best sexy voice, “Betty-Betty-Betty … Betty-Betty-Betty … Betty-Betty-Betty.” Then I wait to hear the rustling of leaves.

When the rustling stops, I know that Betty is looking at me, but hiding. I win the game if I can find her through my camera viewfinder and click-off a couple of shoots, after which she departs with another rustle. She wins if I can’t find her when the rustling stops and there is no other movement.

I forgot to mention that Betty is very hard to find in the overhanging leaves because she’s only about five inches long, usually exposes only her chest and head, and looks like a flash of sunlight coming through the leaves. I also forgot to tell you that she apparently is nesting close by or has already raised a family there.

As the birders who read this post will recognize from the images here, Betty is a common yellowthroat warbler that came up from the south. She’s also a poor loser, but I bet she’s a good mother. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XIII

Here you see the 74-foot KOUKLA in Great Cove yesterday. She participated in Saturday’s Eggemoggin Reach Regatta here:

She’s a custom-built wooden schooner designed by George Stadel of Stamford, Connecticut, and built in Taiwan in1983. She now hails from Rockland, Maine. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 2 and 3, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Memorable Days

Here you see the first wave of sailboats in yesterday’s Annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. That’s the WoodenBoat pier and float in Great Cove. The boats sailed south down the Reach, circled around Halibut Rocks, and returned to finish just off Babson Island, which shelters the Cove’s south entrance. Then, most boats anchored in the Cove as the sun began to set:

The day was virtually perfect for sailing. The appare:ntly delicious dinner and merry party that followed on the WoodenBoat campus must have made the day a memorable occasion for participants.

The 15-mile race is billed as the largest wooden boat regatta in the world. It’s limited to wooden sailboats of 24 feet in length or larger and has sailed the same course since 1985. I took many photographs of the boats as they approached or crossed the finish line in the lowering sun, including this early finisher:

I may create a post on our website to show more of them and will send you a link if and when that happens.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Good Impressions

August arrived yesterday and made a wonderful impression on us. Here you see her tenderly treating our favorite view of the near-mountain called Blue Hill as it overlooked the green and blue waters of Blue Hill Bay. This morning, she bathed the boats in Great Cove with sun and cool breezes. It’s a great start. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on August 1, 2025.)

July Postcards From Down East Maine

July in Down East Maine is the first month of the two-month high summer. As you will see here, this is when our coast is most stunning, our natural landscapes and gardens most lush, our wildlife most vibrant, and our sense of community most evident in the local celebrations of Independence Day and mutual enjoyment of “The Way Life Should Be.”

As usual, we’ll begin these “Wish You Were Here” Postcards with the four vistas that we monitor for the record: Mount Desert Island from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge; the “Island House” in Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor; the old boathouse in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove, and the view of Blue Hill, itself, at the end of Blue Hill Bay. As for that last vista, I should say “befogged view” of the near-mountain, since I’ve decided to show what it looked like on one of our foggy July days.

As for our larger wildlife, July is when all of our white-tailed deer get new reddish coats and our bucks get new velvet-covered “hats.” (The new antlers at first are covered by a protective and nourishing membrane often called of “velvet.”) Old and young, does and bucks, looked to be in excellent health:

On the ornithological front, there was good and tragic news. The bad news relates to Ozzie and Harriet, the ospreys that nest annually in their penthouse over Great Cove. Ozzie disappeared after a vicious fight with an invading osprey during which both appeared to be seriously injured. Harriet repeatedly returned to the empty nest and eventually abandoned it. This is my last image of her:

However, we have many happy summer residents of the feathered kind, including nesting common yellow throat warblers, song sparrows, and great blue herons:

Among the smaller winged wildlife, our returning monarch butterflies always are a concern in July. This year, they seemed to come late and in fewer numbers by my records. On the other hand, we had plenty of spangled fritillary butterflies and bees to help with the pollination of the flora. The dragonflies were increasing at a good pace in July and doing a good job of debugging the landscapes.

On the flora front, there was enough precipitation in July to keep the woods and ponds vibrant and produce vast multitudes of wild and cultivated flowers and berries, only a few of which can be shown here:

In addition to summer flora and fauna there is this thing in coastal Maine simply called “summer fun.” This includes, among many things, community celebrations of Independence Day on July 4. Brooklin is well known for its celebration, which begins with rousing music by the Town Band in the shade of the maples in front of the library:

At about 10 or 10:30 a.m., the annual July 4th Parade winds its way through Town. It’s an eclectic event that includes fire department trucks from the region, imaginative floats, vehicles of all kinds (including classic cars), and ordinary people who suddenly feel like marching down the middle of the road. Here’s some of it:

After the Parade, everyone walks to the nearby Town Green. That’s where the adults can gossip, the children can engage in games and contests, and everyone can eat a delicious lunch. Among the children’s games, you’ll see toddlers trying to throw a “dead chicken” into a hole for a prize, friends trying to hit each other in the face with a wet sponge, and large numbers of fit children seeing who can climb the highest on a slippery pole:

Of course, summer water activities predominate here. Among the most popular tourist activities are multi-day cruises along the coast on classic windjammers that are joys to sail on and to see. Here are a few of the jammers that were seen in Brooklin’s Great Cove during July:

American Eagle (Passing by Frolic)

Angelique (Passing By a Mooring Raft)

Grace Bailey

Heritage I

Heritage II

Heritage III

Lewis R. French (In Light Rain)

Mary Day (In Fog) with J&E Riggin Coming In

Private boats powered by engines, sails, and muscle abound in the July waters in all sorts of weather:

There also are educational activities in Great Cove, where the Wooden Boat School has floating classrooms for novice and seasoned sailors:

It’s not just fun and games on the July waterfront. That’s when many lobster fishermen begin their season by loading traps onto their distinctive vessels and setting the traps in the coastal waters:

We now come to the July full moon. It’s traditionally called “The Buck Moon” because it appears when male deer regrow their annual antlers. Below you’ll see the July moon growing from its gibbous phase to a full moon, and fading to a crescent in a misty sky. You’ll also see a final merged image to remind you of the July moon’s traditional name.

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during July of 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch XII

Yesterday was a two-jammer day in Great Cove, but I didn’t find that out until the massive HERITAGE raised sails and moved out, disclosing the smaller AMERICAN EAGLE anchored directly behind her from my perspective. The two schooners apparently did some overnight rafting.

The 145-foot HERITAGE home-ports in Rockland, Maine, and her schedule says that she was on a five-night cruise along the Maine coast. (She has a habit of sleeping with her mainsail and one topsail up.) Here see her at her overnight anchorage off Babson Island and eventually putting up sails during the morning’s low tide:

She left the Cove in light wind yesterday morning without putting up any staysail or jib:

When the HERTITAGE left, there was her neighbor, the 123-foot AMERICAN EAGLE! (She sleeps with no sails on, so was hard to see.) She’s also from Rockland, and her schedule says that she’s on a six-night “Unscripted Adventure.” She soon raised sails and left the Cove with with staysail and jib up in the light and erratic wind:

As far as I can tell, yesterday’s visit to the Cove was the HERITAGE’S fourth and AMERICAN EAGLE’S second, since the cruising season opened in late spring. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 30, 2025.)