MAINE COAST
Finding Peace off the Maine-land
With its longstanding connection to the ocean, Maine’s astounding coast offers a glimpse into our country’s seafaring past.
Rebecca G. Dorr
We hadn’t expected quite so many hills. My husband and I were in Maine, bracing our calf muscles for another steep grade up Acadia National Park’s one-way, two-lane Park Loop. A day earlier, en route to our departure city of Rockland and despite a long absence from Maine, we confidently remembered a state with soft blankets of vivid green pine forest, ancient boulder-strewn glacial fields, and competing signs for the state’s “Best Lobster Roll.” But we had forgotten about the hills.
Near the top of the next climb, we sat perched above Thunder Hole, a favorite lookout where swelling surf hits enormous, craggy coastal stone in a fabulous and appropriately noisy greeting. We caught our breaths, exhilarated by the exercise and the simple beauty of the passing sun as it glints on the expanse of water before us. The scene felt magnificent but also deeply elemental. We bicycled on, humbled.
It was the first in a string of similar moments we experienced traveling with American Cruise Lines on its newest vessel during a 7-day Maine Coast and Harbors Tour. At 235 feet long, Independence holds 104 passengers and fits squarely within the company’s purview of small-ship cruising. None of its vessels draws more than 8 feet, which means the captains can navigate the company’s fleet into tighter ports than larger cruise lines.
It’s an especially fitting way to see Maine. If you follow the state’s coast from New Hampshire to New Brunswick — and travel as the crow flies — you’ll cover a distance of 230 miles. But to trace the entire seam where land meets ocean is much more complex. It baffles the straight-and-narrow course with its unending coves, peninsulas, inlets, and meandering rivers that dip in from wide-mouthed bays to remote inland passages. Accounting for all these ins and outs, the shoreline is in the vicinity of 4,500 miles, and covers some of the most stunning rocky coast in this country.
For all that has already been written about the massive granite outcrops along Maine’s meandering shore, nothing quite prepares you to view it all from the sea. Indeed, despite previous road trips to the state, I found myself mesmerized by Independence’s vantage point, not unlike what the state’s early settlers had seen — the fishermen, shipbuilders, and schooner captains who had helped the coast hum during its heyday in the 19th century.
The ship’s original itinerary called for a first port of call in Bar Harbor on Mt. Desert Island, a busy vacation spot with easy access to Acadia National Park. Instead, a persistent Hurricane Igor barreled past Bermuda and on toward Newfoundland, and though it never hit Maine, residual swells forced Independence to change its course slightly and dock instead in nearby Bucksport, at the mouth of the Penobscot River.