EASTPORT, Maine

It's raining in Eastport today so I'm writing to the metronomic tune of the fog horn blast. It's soothing and reassuring to know there's a beacon of guidance for fishermen yet to return from harvesting their traps. Life moves with the rhythm of the tides, the winds and the rains out here. And fortunately for us we moved in mostly sun this week.

Yesterday we set our schedule to the tides. All the bays and peninsula's in this area are fed by the Bay of Fundy making 28 foot drops and rises a twice daily experience. In the morning we hiked the trails of Shackford Head State Park, just outside of town. It's a 90-acre peninsula so fairly easy to hike all the trails in a morning. We hit the cove at low tide so had plenty of time to explore the cliffs and caves. The silence was sliced only by the appearance of two bald eagles. One flew to it's nest and the other to a high branch on the shore. It was an awesome experience to watch them soar the length of the cove, multiple times, with barely a flap of their wings.

The afternoon trek was geared toward high tide. We drove over to Reversing Falls Park which is off an obscure country road with only one handmade sign that doesn't appear until you near the gravel tracks leading to the end of the peninsula. When we arrived about an hour before high tide the water converged from three separate estuaries creating a rapids and a whirlpool the size of a city block. The water crashed haphazardly along the banks and as the tide rises one foot every ten minutes we regularly relocated to higher ground. As the tide began to recede a silence prevailed and the water took on a full stillness. We found it so magical we sat for 2 1/2 hours watching the water change shape. About two hours in we were treated to our second set of bald eagles enjoying a mid-afternoon glide. And then, amazingly, a seal bobbed it's head up and swept upstream with the outgoing tide. (Seals are a regular sight here in August but May is very early to see one.)

Much of our day-planning is centered not on the tides, but on the opening hours of the area restaurants. The fish place on Sea Street (with no apparent name and located at the end of an unmarked dirt road beneath Water Street) is our favorite. There are picnic tables outside but no indoor dining. Today we got take-out and drove to the breakwater and lunched in the car with the locals. Rosie's Hot Dogs sits at the entrance to the breakwater dock and is a tiny outbuilding that serves up dozens of hot dogs at lunch hour. The Chowder House doesn't open until Friday so we won't be able to try that local favorite. Fortunately our little apartment at the Todd House, circa 1775, has a kitchenette so we've had most of our dinners in. And we're too early in the season for the Breakfast part of the B&B (which is fine with me as I have an aversion to B&B breakfast chatter) so we've breakfasted in. Sunrise comes early here as we're in the Easternmost city in the U.S. I've been getting up at 4am, watching the spectacular sunrises, then tucking back into bed.

Not our favorite restaurant but our favorite experience was the Rose Garden Cafe. We wandered in on our first morning and found scraps of paper with menu items on a music stand but not a sole in sight. After a crescendo of "Hellos" Linda appeared to assure us lunch was available. The Rose Garden is a creation in progress in an old Lumber Mill. Linda and Al envision installing artist studio lofts around the perimeter of the upper level. In the meantime, Linda rides her bicycle around the artspace/gallery/restaurant and presides over the only weekend entertainment in town. On the Saturday night we turned up the band played for babies to nonagenarian's. The musicians are, well, not quite contemporary. As we listened Benedicta commented (a little too loudly), "I feel like I'm in a time warp." The retiree at the next table turned to his wife and said (a little too loudly), "She said it's like a time warp but around here it's every Saturday night."

Tomorrow is our last day in Eastport so we'll be stopping in for lobster rolls on Sea Street. Then we'll seek out another trail to traverse that will undoubtedly end at the water's edge. Meanwhile I'm going to watch the tide roll out of Passamaquoddy Bay and hope to glimpse our little fox running through the yard on his usual 7pm schedule, as the foghorn continues it's mournful cries.