Hidden Maine

Dog Days in the Fog

Summer is coming. One of the happiest places on Earth is Higgins Beach in Scarborough, Maine. Mornings, before 9, hundreds of people show up. Hundreds of dogs race, run, scamper, and play. It’s the grand social event of the day. If you’ve got a dog, go. If you don’t have a dog, go simply to watch.

This day was overcast with fog. It’s always pure magic.

Atlantic Sunrise

Dawn, chasing the night away. At the shore I sit, I watch, I wait. The sky lightens, then a spark of light and sunlight shoots across hundreds of miles of open ocean to strike the land, and a new day begins. It’s another new shot at life. This is a new day. Our sun returns. The rising sun is most magnificent at the seashore.

Ocean is good, land is great, the two together are awesome. The pure magic of liquid and solid, wind and waves, offers a lifetime of fascination. Toward the end of the video, you can see an oil tanker at the horizon.

April 4, at 10:30. Wind was out of the northeast. Full sun. The gull landed on the roof of the truck. The ocean was aglitter with sparkly light. The gull was ten feet away. The wind was ruffling his feathers. The gull looked left and right. Our planet is magnificent.

Cosco Shipping?
Costco Box Store?

I was at Fort Williams, in Cape Elizabeth, where Portland Head Light is located. I watched as this big container ship came into port. I noticed the word “Cosco” on the side and thought, wow, I had no idea the big box store was so big that they had their own ships to bring in product. I took a picture, then Googled it later and found Cosco and Costco are two different companies. The one that sells stuff has a T in their name. The shipper, as shown in the picture, has no T in its name.

Moonrise

This is a moonrise captured in early November. The oak leaves are still on the tree. It’s a full moon. The ocean is a glitter of silver. The sky is grey. The air temperature was 52° with no wind.

Tubing

The kid was airborne for one second. When I was a kid, that would have been me in the video. You’ll see the kid seconds after with his arms in the air, declaring victory. At 70, it would have knocked the wind out of me. I would try it out once and never do it again. The ten-year-old went back to do it a dozen times. Winter is brief, 60 days, and it’s gone. This was February 21st, at Fort Williams, 200 feet from the ocean.

The Spring Equinox

With the approach of the spring equinox, the sun is low in the sky, and the air is getting warmer. At the ocean, there is light on the water for a longer period of time. The light glitters, it shines, and some of us are like cats; we can’t walk past a window without staring. We sit by the shore staring in wonder….we never tire of the magic of light on water this time of year.

Ocean Dreaming

Are we racing so fast that when we see it, we really don’t see it? This is near noon at a parking lot in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Simply looking requires no mind. The soul is at rest. The mind hums a little tune. It’s low tide, snow in the foreground, sparkling light on the water, black rocks reaching out to sea, and unlimited time. Sparkly light on the water exists whether anyone sees it or not.

Candelabra in the Storm

Friday night, it snowed. The sun came out on Saturday. Snow began again early Monday morning. We called work off.

This is a candelabra hanging from an oak tree. We purchased the candelabra in Savannah, Georgia. Last winter, the candelabra fell because the chain it hung from wore through. Study the exquisite detailing in this ancient lighting fixture in contrast to the wild, eclectic branching of the trees. Man’s presence on earth is in such dramatic contrast to nature.

It was a good snowstorm here in Maine. Perhaps the best of the season.

Lobster Boat in the Storm

At the shore in Cape Elizabeth, it was snowing. We had one of the national winter storms with wind. At Seal Cove, there is a fleet of lobster boats year-round. This white boat was the only one parked at the Cove on this January day. There are sand beaches on the left and right. At this snowy promontory, the boat is anchored 75 feet offshore. One hundred feet beyond the boat, incoming waves are cresting. Yes, there is a narrow space that is safe to anchor.

In the distance is Richmond Island. I come several times a month, year-round, park the truck, and watch the waves, people, dogs, the sky, and the water. It’s nice to be near the sea. On this January day, the surf was good.

Icicles Hanging From the Roof

In the Northeast, we have been spared this winter from what the rest of the nation has had to endure. Toward the end of January, we had a civilized foot of fluffy, white snow. It piled high in the driveway. Snow on the roof melts during the day, and icicles form at the edge. I took pictures this morning of the roof snow melting and the rising sun shining behind 5-foot icicles.

Greetings from Maine, a thousand feet south of Portland Head Light.

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.