Mount Desert Island "44:16.3N 68:18.2W"

VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Wed 13 Jul 2011 20:03
We've moved a couple of islands to Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park (America's most visited). The island reaches 1500 feet, making it the highest land on the eastern seaboard of the Americas north of Rio de Janeiro (very useful info in a pub quiz, perhaps).
We're on a buoy for a couple of nights at a reasonable $35 per night having come here to get fuel and provisions (delivered to the boat at no extra cost) - first time we haven't been at anchor since we left the Caribbean. We have met a guy on another boat, an engineer who worked on the Dinorwic Pump Storage Power Station in North Wales. He asked if I knew anything about the Welsh Highland Railway about which he had heard very little. He was much surprised when I was able to produce the recent edition of 'Heritage Railway' magazine giving chapter and verse on the restoration and reopening (my father had been on the first public through train from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Caernarfon and had sent me the magazine. Small world.
Anyway, today we went up Mansell Mountain (drawing itself up to its full height it is 949 feet, less than 300m so it's scarcely a mountain really but it passes for one round here because everywhere else is so flat). Here is a view from near the top looking out to the south over Swan's Island in the distance. You may notice that there are an awful lot of trees. And if you turn round in any other direction there are even more trees. It is difficult to comprehend the size of the forests round here - mile after mile after mile of conifers.
 
 
There are also lots and lots and lots of bilberries/blueberries (and cranberries and wild raspberries).  Here is alison grazing on a few bilberries (Vaccinium angustifolium, a species not found in the UK).
 
 
And here is the biggest wild animal we saw on the walk, the Bullfrog Rana catesbeiana. This is a very large voracious frog with enormous tadpoles. Its croak sounds like an elastic band being twanged.