Kayaking at Great Long Pond

Kayaking was amazing.  We had a solid two and a half hours of fun paddling around the great long pond.  The pond was huge, very long, and I didn't even see all of it.  We rented two tandem kayaks to explore in.  Great views here too, nice scenery, mountains and trees in background.  See photo for a shot I took >

                                 This is the amazing view I got kayaking today!

Extreme Tide Change

This morning when we walked across the sand bar that connects Bar Harbor to Bar Island at low tide, I noticed how much the tides change.  The difference between high tide and low tide average 10ft and sometimes as much as 12ft as you can see in the two pictures.

Look at both of these pictures.  Top is at low tide and bottom is at high tide.

This is the sand bar that gives Bar Harbor it's name.

Low tide.  At low tide many people walk, and drive to Bar Island across the water.

High tide.  Taken in the same spot seven hours later.  Now that's a lot of water!

Whale Watching

Today we went whale watching.  It was so much fun.  A great day here for it too.  This was my first time ever going whale watching.  It took a while until we spotted a whale but it was awesome when we did.  The kind of whale we saw was a humpback.  The naturalist tour guide had seen him before and was calling him Churn, because of a mark on his tail.  We followed him for a while, and came across another humpback whale.  It was so much fun.  If you are ever in Bar Harbor you must go whale watching!

Here is a short video of the whale we saw:

Bar Harbor FireWorks

The fireworks were amazing.  The show lasted for a solid 30 minutes.  Tons of people sat on the hill to get a great view.  We came half an hour before the show started and it was hard to find a spot.  It was nice that they turned off the street lights on the hill and on the pier so it was in complete darkness.  Also, we were only about 75 yards away from where they were being shot off.

There were so many people sitting on the hill looking out at the harbor.  I took this 30 minutes before the show started.  And lots more people kept coming! 




I know fireworks are fireworks and everyone has seen them, and know you know what they look like, but here are a few Bar Harbor fireworks shots I took last night.

Bar Harbor Updates

We've been having so much fun it's hard finding time to write these posts.  I'm going to try to somewhat catch up for yesterday when I did not post because of tiredness.


Here's the trip so far:


Day 1:
Yesterday Morning

We stopped for an early breakfast at Purple Cow about 90 miles from Bar Harbor.

The Purple Cow sign outside and Purple Cow picture directly inside.

They had great pancakes.  Except they were hard to finish because they were so big.  We just had to take a picture because they look unbelievable (even more so then the picture)!

They each were about as big as a plate!   

Here is the picture of the huge pancakes.

Midday
We had time to spend before we could go to our rental house, so we decided to go to Acadia National Park (5 minute drive from Bar Harbor) and walk down to the well known Thunder Hole.
I researched geocaches nearby and with the GPS tried to hopefully find a geocache.  This was not easy.  Loads of boulders everywhere and lots of places to look.






Here was the view of part of the walk down to Thunder Hole.






Day 2:
Morning-Evening

We took a shuttle from Bar Harbor to Jordan Pond and went hiking on a trail around the pond which was about 3.5 miles.  The water was very clear and you could see the rocks on the bottom for a good distance.

Picture during our hike.  We're about half way around Jordan Pond.
(My mom took this same photo of us six years ago when we last visited.)










Fireworks later tonight over the beautiful harbor.  I will try to post a picture and more about this tomorrow.

The Bar Harbor Vacation Begins

I'm sorry, I'm suffering from extreme lack of sleep.  So this is all I'm posting today.  We're off for a nightly walk, hoping to find a geocache near the piers of bar harbor,  and then to bed for a good nights sleep.  I will certainly post more tomorrow, also with pictures.