Living Water (Tuesday, August 7)
This morning the gnats were all but gone—can’t tell you how much more comfortable that makes breakfast time. They must like the heavy, wet air that hung over us earlier. Glorious blue skies beckoned us, which was great since we were getting an early start today.
Why the hurry? We wanted to walk out to Bar Island , a small island off Bar Harbor that is connected by a strip of sand during low tide. Getting three families loaded into vehicles and on their way for the day is no small feat, and we actually got on the road on time!
Walking along the sand bar on the way to the island, we realized that vehicles can even drive over, as long as they are quick to return. Getting to the island, we started walking to one corner where the tourist info guy had told us we could find rocky tide pools.
At first it just looked like seaweed. These tide pools look like puddles of seaweed and rocks, with a good sprinkling of snails and barnacles. At first glance, you think that’s it. But if you walk out into the water, and you just stand there for a little while, and if you pay close attention, you’ll notice the bigger crabs camouflaged like rocks. The sand dollars that look like little shells but are too perfectly shaped. The tiny greenish crabs that scoot around almost unnoticed in the water. Clams lodged all over the place. A boy near us even caught a small lobster in his bucket! We also saw a boat motor, two lobster traps, and other assorted paraphernalia washed up on the beach. And we found a big piece of sea glass, Natalie’s favorite thing.
After making our way back to the Bar Harbor side of the sandbar, we all piled into our assorted cars and drove to a trail called Bubble Rock. At .6 miles to the Rock, somehow I assumed this was an easy trail, and I shared that impression with some younger people I am related to. They believed me. It turned out to be a moderately strenuous uphill climb to a wonderful view and a rock that really looks nothing like a bubble, though it does appear to be balancing on the edge of the hill. We thought we’d take the trail out the other side because it was likely a little easier and would have a different view. It turned out to be harder than the way up! But it came down next to a lake, and so it definitely offered a different view. But it’s fun to have some hikes that challenge us a bit.
The big event, the rescheduled whale watching tour, was still to come. We went through a frantic 45 minutes of trying to find a parking spot, picking up food for the family from Subway and getting into the long line to board the boat. The boat is considered a high-speed catamaran, but mostly it looks sort of like a passenger ferry like you might take to Mackinaw Island
Our guide, Julie, spent a good part of the 3-hour trip talking on the microphone. And she wasn’t one of those guides who feels like they just have to keep on talking—she was actually interesting. She was there doing research, so she had a big body of knowledge and she appreciated curiosity. And soon I stopped thinking of her as Julie, the cruise director, on the Love Boat (a show I was not supposed to watch; I had to resort to watching it while I babysat—hey, don’t tell my mom and dad).
I didn’t know what to expect with a whale watching tour. I was a bit concerned that the biggest show of the trip was the performance of the man at the store selling us tickets, telling us about what they've been seeing lately. And I figured if we did spot a whale, it would likely just be a swish of the tale or a spout of water or something. Instead, we were brought to a place where 3 humpback whales were swimming together, and they were trying out all their “behaviors”. It was amazing! We watched them for at least an hour and a half—swimming, showing their tales, flapping fins in the air, and several times the whales breached. It was truly breathtaking. The crowd was ecstatic. On the way home, I saw a couple of porpoises swimming near the boat, but no one commented on them officially. Just my luck to finally be observant, only to have no one to back me up. Again, Gary Schmidt and “Lizzie Bright” lingered here somehow, as we thought about the eye of the whale.
I have always loved large bodies of water. My love for Lake Michigan is the closest I can come to understanding the Native American relationship with the land before they were displaced. Living in Texas during middle school and high school, I somehow felt disconnected, like it couldn’t be home if the Lake was so far away. I imagine this is how people who live near mountains feel about those mountains, and how coastal dwellers feel about the ocean.
When I’ve had the chance to be near the ocean, I love the power and the majesty of crashing waves on rocks, of watching swell and spray. But all I mostly see is water. Usually enough for me. But there is so much going on under the surface—so much happening that I know nothing about. And I can get a glimpse of it if I would just stop and pay close attention. It’s a great model to have in your head as you think about how God works in our lives. We tend to look for the water-to-wine incidents, or the healing of the blind and lame. But we have to look closely and carefully to see what is going on under the surface.
So today was pretty amazing. I don’t think I’ll get over it any time soon.
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