At the moment we are in Portland Maine for Zack’s wedding. It’s hard to get writing done and postings up when on the road so this is a Delaware post. It may apply to this part of Maine too. I need to check it out a bit more.
Had a crazy day on Tuesday. Got up at 4:00 to catch the sunrise. The Cape Henlopen gate is closed from sunset to sunrise so I had to park at the fishing pier and walk the mile to the point. Had a beautiful sunrise, saw dolphins cavorting about, got sanderlings for the list, saw a major dragonfly migration, hopped the ferry to Cape May, got Wilson’s storm petrels on the Bay somewhere between Cape Henlopen and Cape May, then drove from Cape May to north of Boston.
Henlopen sunrise.
I’ve spent the past week or so going coastal. Going coastal isn’t just about being near the ocean. It’s being near the ocean and accepting a certain a state of mind, a way of looking at things. Not just the “time flies when your having rum” state of mind. That’s an important part of it, but not all of it. Part of the mind set is an awareness of your settings.
The coastal state of mind is what makes Dogfish Head Brewery or Sambo’s Tavern so good. Thrasher’s fries are great. Eating Thasher’s fries while hearing the waves crash is heavenly. Going coastal is the attitude that allows for some tolerance, or even envy, of pirates. Kind of a Robin Hood thing. Sure they’re a bunch of thugs and thieves but at least they’re good sailors. They use honest seamanship to rob people. They don’t plunder your livelihood while sitting on their butts in the boardroom of Bain Capitol. That’s just plain thievery and requires no knowledge of the winds. May as well walk into a bank with a gun.
Dogfish Head brewery. Good food and good drinking. They make their own beer and their own bacon. Can’t get much better than that.
It’s a mind set hard to explain to anyone not familiar with the coast. Everyone and everything around here is, in one way or another, tied to the rhythm of the ocean. Consciously or unconsciously it permeates the soul. People come to the beach and do nothing but sit stare at the ocean for hours. Something there speaks to us.
While birding at Prime Hook another birder happened up. One of his first comments was, “Have you seen the gull?” By “the gull” he meant the Sabine’s gull at Missisilpin inlet. Maybe it was the Kowa scope but he immediately assumed I should know about “the gull”. People came from four states to see “the gull”. I said I was there earlier in the day but no gulls were there. He immediately said, “the low tide hits there around 6:30 so there should be some gulls there about then.” He knew that the presence of gulls at Missisilpin was tied to the tidal phase and he knew the time of the low tide.
I’m just a water rat at heart. I like being in, on, or near, just about any water body. I’d be perfectly happy meeting my maker wearing my waders in Sand River. I’d make him wait until the light was too poor for photography but still it wouldn’t bother me meeting him there.
But there’s something that sets ocean apart from other water bodies. Maybe it’s the sheer size. You can get lost on the ocean. There is enough elbow space you don’t feel crowded. The ocean can swallow up a lot of people. Even on a crazy holiday weekend it can suck up all the yahoo weekend boaters with room to spare. If we’re lucky some of the dumber ones get to meet Davey Jones and the gene pool gets cleaned up a bit.
Maybe it’s the constant change. The ocean is never static. Other systems change but often the changes are subtle and protracted. Not the ocean. Here change is constant and noticeable every minute of the day. There is always some kind of movement, always something going on. Every tide cycle takes something away and brings something new. Each cycle the beach is sculpted differently than the time before. Not sure what it is, I just know that I belong on or near the ocean.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 