Sept 5 Day 4

We spent our day today traveling through Acadia National Park, and visiting Bar Harbor Maine.

We awoke this morning to thunder, and a quick look out the window revealed some pretty heavy rainfall. However, the storm was small in size, and blew through the area in under 20 minutes. By the time we had a little breakfast and got the bike ready to go for the day the rain had passed and the day ahead looked promising. For the remainder of the day, the storms continued to pass but stayed well north of us, leaving us with a beautiful day to visit the park.

Once in the park, it reminded me a lot of riding along the Blue Ridge Parkway, with trees lining the roads in areas away from the actual coastline. Portions of the park/island are covered in aspen trees, while other areas are thick with firs and pines.

Once you get to the ocean, the coastline is very rugged, with large rocks and cliffs. This area is called Thunder Hole, a large, partially submerged, rectangular crevice. When the ocean waves rush into the crevice and slam into the submerged hole it creates a thunderous BOOM and splash. A pretty impressive display of the power and persistence of water.

Here is another shot of the rocky coastline.

This is a photo from the top of Cadillac Mountain, which rises a mere 1528 feet (small by most standards), but is the highest peak within 25 miles of east coast of the US.

During the fall and winter months, Cadillac Mountain is the first location in the US to be struck by the sun's rays each morning. Driving or hiking to the summit of Cadillac Mountain to see "the nation's first sunrise" is a popular activity for visitors to Acadia National Park.

You can see the town of Bar Harbor in the distance as well.

Zooming in a little gives a better view of Bar harbor. You can see a ton of sail boats just off shore in the left center area of the photo. You can also see a LARGE sail boat farther off shore. We'll talk more about that particular vessel later.

After spending most of the morning riding and walking around the park, we decided to head into the town of Bar Harbor and get some lunch. Bar Harbor is a cute little town but certainly caters to the tourist crowd with tons of restaurants and lots of shopping. We had lunch at a seafood place right on the water, and the food was fresh and wonderful.

In the harbor, you can book various types of boat rides, some for whale watching, touring light houses, or to go out sea kayaking. Here are a couple of the catamarans ready for customers.

There are a number of neat hotels on the island, including this one right on the coast, the Bar Harbor Inn.

Just down the pier from the Bar Harbor Inn, is the Margaret Todd, a neat 4 masted schooner that will take you out for a lunch or dinner cruise. The Margaret Todd is the only 4 masted schooner to work New England waters in over half a century.

You can see the Margaret Todd tied up in the photo below. You can also see a pretty good sized privately owned power boat. Look at the man on the dock to the left to get a feel for the size of the power boat.

The well dressed man below was a limo driver standing on shore close to where the power boat above was tied up, so Lennie decided to chat with him. She asked if he was waiting for the visitors from the large power boat, and his reply was "no, I'm waiting for the folks coming off of that small white sail boat that is too big to dock and had to anchor in the harbor" as he smiled and pointed out into the water....

Yep, it is the sailboat that we saw from the top of Cadillac Mountain. It was huge compared to the other sailing vessels in the harbor. Compare it to the sail boats on either side, which are much closer to the shore. The limo driver claimed it was the largest single masted sail boat in the world.

Here's another shot showing the huge single masted ship. Look closely next to it, about mid ship.

Zooming in, you can see an open console fishing boat tied up along side. For perspective, that fishing boat is probably a 30 footer?

Not one to believe everything I hear, I wanted to find out more about that ship. So, the investigation begins. In the zoomed photo below, you can make out the name "Mirabella V" on the boom. I figured if this really is some sort of famous ship, I should certainly be able to find some info on the web, right?

Well, much to my surprise, this REALLY is the largest single masted Superyacht in the world. There is an entire wiki page about it here (Mirabella V).

Turns out this ship was built as part of a fleet of super yachts for Joe Vittoria, the former Chairman and CEO of AVIS rental cars. The ship was used privately by Vittoria for most of the year, and then chartered out for about 12 weeks each year. While Vittoria owned the vessel, you could charter the Mirabella V for a meager $250,000 a week ($420,000 a week in 2010) !!!

And, if you missed out on a charter week, you're out of luck, as Vittoria recently sold the vessel to a private owner.

The super yacht took 7 years to build, at a cost of roughly $50 million dollars.

As for the size, the overall length is 247 feet with a beam of 49 feet. The mast is 292 feet tall !!!! When there is not enough wind, there are 2 diesel engines, each producing 1056 horse power. With her keel fully lowered, she drafts 32 feet 10 inches, a few inches MORE than the 70,000 ton ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2). She sailed for the first time on April 14, 2004.

Here's one final shot that I found on the internet of the Mirabella V under sail.

After leaving Bar Harbor, we traveled over to the southwest portion of the island. We passed this interesting looking lobster shack along the way.

Turns out, the owner of the lobster shack actually owns and operates his own lobster boat. He had a huge collection of lobster pots stored along side the building.

Later in the day, the weather started to look a little more threatening, so we decided to head back toward our hotel in Ellsworth Maine.

Starting tomorrow, it looks like the weather may be turning on us, with rain in the forecast for the next bunch of travel days :(

In the morning we will start to travel back towards the west, and spend the night in Freeport Maine, the home of the original LL Bean store. We plan to stop and shop, as they are open 24 hours a day, and I need some new boots for the upcoming winter (did I actually start mentioning winter already?).

We covered 107 miles driving around Acadia NP and the Bar Harbor area, taking our trip total to 997 miles. Below is a map of the route from today.