Time and Tide Wait For No Man

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No fat, self-service, buffet breakfast today (with or without tips) as we were all sorted having stocked-up at the supermarket yesterday. We had planned to walk across to Bar Island today, but that can only be reached at low tide. Unless we were prepared to go at some unearthly hour in the morning, low tide was at 2.00pm, which gave us a perfect excuse for another morning relaxing and the kids having a mess-around in the pool.

The causeway to the island is exposed between about one and half hours before low tide and one and a half hours afterwards. We got there at about 1.00pm, which allowed plenty of time to walk across, walk up to a nice view point on the island and walk back, with no real risk that we would end up stuck on the island for 12 hours. We 're not sure how deep it actually gets (could you wade back?) or whether there are any boats that run there and back once the causeway has disappeared.

Once we had finished the walk we had just got back into our car when the heavens opened and the torrential rain started. We couldn't have timed it better. We had planned to go to Arcadia National Park, so we stuck with our plans and went to the Visitors Centre to work-out where to walk and to wait for the rain to die down. We also needed to get the $20 pass required to enter the park, which lasts for seven days.

We picked a relatively short and flat walk between the imaginatively named Sand Beach and Otter Point along the coast of the island. Half way between these two points is the Thunder Hole. When the tide is right the water compresses air into a natural rock crevice here and the explosive release of the air causes a thunder sound. By luck, our timing was perfect and the thunder was in full volume every few seconds.

Our timing was not so perfect in respect to the rain, which was not as bad as it had been, but still bad enough that when we got back from our walk we were soaked through, despite being organised enough to bring some raincoats with us.

We went back to Bar Harbor for something to eat. The food was fantastic, but the portions were not what we had got used to. Back in the UK, these would be perfectly acceptable, but now that we had been in the US for a few days we somehow felt short changed. That said, it was nice to leave the restaurant not feeling completely and uncomfortably stuffed.

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Photos

Bar Island Causeway
The causeway to Bar Island, which is only exposed at low tide.

Bar Island View
The view from Bar Island back towards Bar Harbor.

Otter Point Coast
The island coastline not far from Otter Point.