Hidden Maine

We had a storm coming: snow, ice, wind, and plunging temperatures. Early in the morning, what I thought at first was an oil tanker arriving at Portland Harbor turned out to be a container ship. There was a wind out of the north, and temperatures were falling. Sea smoke was drifting across the sea to the south. Sea smoke is a clue that we are experiencing very cold temperatures. I watched until it became apparent that it was a ship from the Icelandic company called Eimskip. It would be in Portland Harbor in less than half an hour.

A Winter Storm

A monster snowstorm swept across the nation last week. The weather reports were coming in, and it sounded like it could be serious. I bought gas for the generator. They warned about driving. They talked about wind and drifting snow. To be safe, we told the Cross staff to stay home on Monday.

This photo was of the sea. The waves near Portland Head Light were about 10 feet in height.

The Mystery of Waves

I am a simple being. I live by the ocean; I have for most of my life. I’m attracted to waves at the shore and sparkly light on the water. I’m in my seventh decade and have had nowhere near my fill of water and waves approaching the shore. I know of no one similarly afflicted with this disease to the degree I am. I can waste hours just watching the ocean. While I have other interests, I lose it the moment I approach the shore. I am convinced I will be just five minutes wave-watching and am repeatedly surprised that two hours have passed.

Each wave is different. Each wave strikes the shore and rocks in a new way. I can hardly wait for the next wave.

I look while filming. I zoom in on a rock 75 feet away. My camera is watching when a wave strikes perfectly, 20 feet away from where I am focused.

I live on a rare part of the shore where our rocks are bone white when dry. When they are wet, they turn black. We have caves on our thousand feet of coastline. I could spend ten lifetimes exploring these caves and never see it all. We have a 100-foot canyon. It’s a geological puzzle. If I were ten, I would go there every day. One of the canyon’s ends opens to the ocean. The other end cuts into a hidden cove.

It’s all a mystery. We all should have a collection of mysteries surrounding our lives every day. Then our lives would be more interesting. This video was shot early in the morning on the shortest day of the year. The air temperature was 48°. All the snow was gone.

Symbol of Strength

I find it remarkable that this lighthouse is still here. Ram Island Light has marked the entrance to Portland Harbor for over 100 years. I’ve watched the storms and waves strike the lighthouse for over half a century. The engineering for strength in resisting the power of the sea is remarkable. We respect lighthouses for their purpose of guiding ships and protecting lives. Some of us marvel at their resilience in the face of the power of storms. They are symbols of strength built in places of danger and risk. Lighthouses silently echo important aspects of our humanity in physical form.

The Shortest Day of the Year
December 21, 2025

Winter’s stillness settled in two Sundays ago, on the shortest day of the year. The land slept in shades of tan, taupe, and brown. The sea was blue, the sky was blue. Waves upon the rocks were the same as on an August morning. Nothing on the sea had changed, except that there were no boats, no sails, no motors. Although the ocean showed little difference from summer, I still yearned for the temperatures to come six months from now.

A New England summer is more precious than summer anywhere else on Earth, and summer in Maine is the best.