#176 Afternoon light on Kimball Island

A week ago we anchored off Point lookout, Isle au Haut. 

 Tom and I in the dinghy

After settling in, we took the dinghy for a ride up the thoroughfare. Years ago on the little claudia, we lost our anchor in there somewhere. The place didn't look the same - a lot more boats on moorings. Needless to say, we didn't find our anchor.

 Afternoon Light on Kimball Island

On our way back to the boat, we caught the afternoon light on Kimball Island which is adjacent to Isle au Haut on the thoroughfare. We saw an eagle being chased by three crows. Other than that, there wasn't a blasted thing going on until our raucous post dinner game of cribbage with Stevie and Andrea. Later that night was absolute silence under a canopy lit by the galaxy.

The beach I rowed to and swam.

The following morning, I rowed over to a nearby outcropping where I hauled the dinghy up onto a beach to go swimming in some of the coldest water I have ever been in. It rivaled the arctic water plunge at my son's health club in Seattle. 

But it was one of those perfect mornings in Maine. There wasn't a breath of wind, and the only sound was wildlife and the dripping off my oars as I continued to slide around the backside of the atoll while the sun warmed me back up. 

I pissed off some local gulls, waded in to a tidal pool, and then stopped at another little beach before making my way back to the boat over a sand bar that was quickly disappearing with the incoming tide. 

My solar shower invention

Back at the boat, we assembled a solar shower I made with a child's hula hoop to wash off the salt water. It worked like a charm. The water was cold having cooled off in the night air, but it was such great fun everyone had to try it.

I felt like a kid again.

Afternoon Light on Kimball Island • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $200 

About Isle au Haut
Originally the island belonged to the Penobscot Abenaki Indians. It was French explorer Samuel de Champlain who named it Isle au Haut meaning high island. When the English Captain John Smith chartered Maine's coast in 1614, he noted that it was indeed, the highest island in Penobscot Bay.

As it turns out, Point Lookout was a private club some Boston rusticators had built back in the 1880s.