Osprey nest that is believed to be 80 years old
Small group of seals on a rock area away from humans
Little Cranberry Isle harbor7/26 Thursday We took a cruise around the five Cranberry Isle islands. These are inhabited islands, although some are not year round. There are about 400 islands in the state with about 300 being inhabited at least a part of the year. In these islands, the kids who live on all but two islands must either be home schooled or commute to a school on either Big or Little Cranberry Isle. This means a boat ride each day in their own boat. There are many days when the fog is so thick that even some boats with radar stay in port. It was surprising how many really small boats had radar domes on the cockpit roof. Even on Big and Little Cranberry Isle, the schools are only one-room schools. Little Cranberry had 14 students last year.
We passed a lighthouse that has been decommissioned due to better navigational aides like GPS. With pressure from local citizens, the government offered a 60-year lease on the island with the lighthouse with the stipulation the lessee had to maintain the lighthouse at his or her expense. It is reported the family who lives by the lighthouse did some very costly repairs about two years ago. There is still a light that flashes red instead of white each night in this lighthouse.
We continue to be amazed by the clarity of the water and the depth you can see below the surface. In the harbor at Little Cranberry, we were seeing things on the bottom that was over 10 feet deep. The bottom sometimes looks dirty, but the water does not. This area has tide swings between 10’ and 12’ twice a day. This results in some very high docks and things like winches to get items from the water level up to the ground level. The angle of ramp we went up from our tour boat was about a 400 incline.
On Little Cranberry were we docked awhile (I think the captain had an interest in the restaurant there), they had cars that had been brought in by barge. They ran on paved roads from the old days, but the license plates had expired years before. It seems the DOT doesn’t visit the island to check on renewals. The folks that live there either have old cars or golf carts to get around the 500+ acre island. They keep another car on the mainland in parking lots created for this purpose so they can go grocery shopping, to the doctor, etc. Some have boats they run back and forth while others who are seasonal will normally ride the mail boat that stops at all the islands.
The Little Cranberry island has about 14 families living year round, but in the summer this number can swell to as much as 400; no one is really sure how many are there. There are power and phone lines from the mainland, but they must provide their own well and septic systems. The real attraction is the constant quiet with only the normal sound of splashing water and wind. Living on one of the islands, there is almost always a breeze, so things like air conditioners are almost not needed. Property on the islands sells for about $500k per acre.
We saw two osprey nests on the tour. One nest had not been productive this year as the eggs apparently did not hatch. The other did have two babies who would peek over the edge of the nest to check the passing boats from their day marker roost. Male osprey will find a female and bring her home to his nest. If she fails to produce young, the male goes looking for a new mate to bring home. One nest is reported to be 80 years old, so this male has produced many offspring over the years.
The local people and government have attempted to provide safe places for the osprey to build new nests. They have erected phone poles with large plywood tops, but so far the osprey has ignored these and built nests on the tops of chimneys. This renders the fireplace useless as the homeowner cannot do anything to the nest include smoke it with a fire from below. Building a fire may also result in a house fire when the wooden nest catches fire and then falls on the wood shingle roof.
This was not the case with one home fire, but this home burned to the slab; after all, getting fire trucks to a location and in time to save things appears limited at best. The owners decided to build on the location again, but the Maine government said no, you are now too close to the water. They could not move back as they did not own enough property, so their smart lawyers found that building exactly the same house again, right down to the windows, siding and roof materials, then registered the home as a historic home, they could get around the new restriction; of course this is what they did.
We saw seals on one small piece of rock that was exposed due to the tide being out. What we saw was only about 1/3 of the total number of seals in this family. It seems seals stay in their own families and normal breed only within their family. Apparently this reproduction is working okay for seals, but it has proven in humans to have disastrous results. The seals are all black or brown, so those that appear gray or multi-colored are still wet.
The population of the area kids is declining yearly and so is the number of schools. Because the price of land and homes has increased so much, families raised on the islands or shoreline can’t buyout their sibling’s portion of the home or property that now is part of their parent’s estate. As result the siblings must sell the property and most of the buyers are older and may only buy the home for summer use. Some homes are so old they are not insulated, so the new buyers close these homes after the summer. With older buyers, there are no kids to educate.
The lobster people, mostly lobstermen, are allowed to put out 800 pots or traps each. They go to the same town hall to register their car, the boat, while at the same time they register to be lobstermen and register the color pattern of the buoys they will use to mark their traps. Plastic tags are issued and must be attached to the lobster pots to be legal. Generally the pattern on the buoy is simple because the buoy is a white round Styrofoam shape with a stick through the middle to attach the rope to. The lobsterman must hand paint each of these buoys, and let us not forget he must paint at least 800 of these, so the KISS principal is very important. They mark their boat with the pattern of their buoys so others can see they are pulling only their pots.
The lobsterman must visit each pot once every three days. If he has 800 pots, he will have many very long days as this averages 270 pots per day. Some will put two pots per buoy to make checking faster. These pots are attached together with about 25’ of rope so they will land about 25’ apart. They push one pot off the side of the boat, and then let this trap pull the second pot into the water and finally the buoy as they head for the next buoy. Frequently they set their buoys only a few boat lengths apart. Sometimes the buoys in a harbor leave very little room for a large boat to make passage into the harbor.
Visiting the pots every three days is critical as the haddock used as bate rots and will no longer attract the lobsters. Second, lobsters caught in traps get hungry and will begin to eat each other. Most of the haddock is fresh when purchased by the lobsterman when he brings in the days catch and prepares for the next day, so the lobsterman who fails to go out the following day now has spoiling haddock that will not support the pot the normal three day rotation period.
Most lobstermen have some other job. Carpentry seems to be very popular, but some become caretakers of homes for absentee owners or grounds keepers for other homes. One of the larger and nicer homes used year round is taken care of by a PE coach. This must be a neat trick during football season when these homes are still in use and after school coaching is a daily requirement.
One wealthy banking investment broker hands out tickets to all the permanent island residents and year round workers to visit his property on July 4th. He has even had Reba McEntire perform for the guests on the lawn before the fireworks display begins on the water with fireworks launched worth a reported $100k. This man owns four homes around the world and he does the same at each location. This home, however, was his first and his favorite. We also saw the summer home of Martha Stewart, but it was high on a hill instead of being near the water. From our vantage point, it was not all that impressive, but I am sure she is able to move about the local town without being mobbed.
