13 inches per hour

One of the interesting things we have been watching while we've been here on Mount Desert Island, is the tremendous height of the tides ..... 12 to 13 feet.  Right now in this phase of the moon it is running 13 feet every 12 hours.  Now, I'm not into the details of the tide charts nor do I claim to understand tides very much ...... but to me that translates into 13 inches per hour.  That's really a lot.   On our way into town, we see piers on mudflats, boats lying on the shore, etc,  ..... and on the way back from town that same pier is surrounded by water and the boats are floating.  The two pictures bbelow are taken from the roadside at approximately the same point.  It's just something I'm not used to seeing and it fascinates me.

Another thing that really fascinates me is the "footprint" of glaciers upon this area.  The historical information here says that this area was once covered by ice at least a mile thick ..... talk about a heavy load!  There is very little topsoil (one reason for the forests being shorter), and the granite rock of this area is seen everywhere.  The islands are all shaped (in profile) similarly due to the ice sheet sliding up over one end, and fracturing the opposite end into sharp cliffs as it moved on the downside.

Even the mountains on the big island have the same shape:

We did a short hike today .... 1 1/4 mile, but it was along a rocky shore trail .... so it was probably more than Vera should have done with her "tired" pacemaker .... but wow, was it invigorating. (Vera gets her pacemaker replaced Wednesday as an outpatient).

That's Vera on the trail.

Here's another picture of the carriage trail from "the carriage":

Tomorrow afternoon we will move the motorhome back up to Bangor, Maine (1 hour North). We will stay there, closer to the hospital, for several days after Vera's surgery. We will need to stay in this area until her followup visit in about 10 days ..... so we may come back down here to Mt. Desert Island for another week.  We love it here !!!!!

Oh, one more thing:  Mount Desert Island was named in 1604 by Champlain when he discovered and mapped it; but it was a long french phrase which meant "mountain void of vegetation". So the word "desert" is meant like the verb "to desert", or to leave deserted, (not the noun like something sweet to eat).  The french name was later shortened.

Later, Marilyn