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Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Drift Inn Beach


It was a beautiful sunny afternoon on the beach, for about 15 minutes. Then the fog bank (the same one, I swear, that lurks around every corner this fog-filled summer, waiting for us to set up on the deck before pouncing) rolled in. I could have spent another 15 minutes strolling and gazing, for Drift Inn is a pretty little number, decent rocks, reasonable sand at low tide, and lovely islands offshore. I'm not sand-beach silly, however, and I was just as happy to pack up the dog and drive down to the lighthouse at Marshall Point and the real rocks there. Millions of folks seem to crave the beach, lying low and looking around and lounging in some kind of vegetative state. I get bored, and I'm not easily bored. Reading is too difficult, the flies too persistent, the waves unvarying, the preening too obvious. Walking down the sands is OK, as long as there's at least a mile in the offing, also watching little kids work so diligently with buckets of water and sand. For the other 364 and a half days of the year, give me rocks and firs and tide pools and tidal zones.

After Marshall Point and a lovely walk over to Port Clyde village and back, we drove past Drift Inn on the way home. The fog was thicker than ever, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees, and there were now more cars parked along the road than there had been when it was sunny, more people sitting in lawn chairs even though the water could no longer be seen, more kids running back and forth with important news from the waves.

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