Picnic, Anyone??

Yesterday, the weather broke. After almost three days of rain, the clouds cleared and released us out on the lake in earnest for the first time since we arrived. I took the kayak up around the big island towards the north end of the lake. They call it the 100 acre island. It was granted to the State of Maine many years ago by the three families who owned it in exchange for a pledge by the State that it would remain undeveloped and open to the public for exploring. I fished around the nooks and crannies and marveled at the beauty of a place that has been untouched by modern schemes of progress. To give you all an idea of the size of Crawford Pond, here are some photos to provide a frame of reference:

The blue dot is Loon Call Cottage. In our little cove the view is blocked. We can only see our cove, but paddle in a kayak for three minutes and suddenly the entire expanse of the place opens up. To travel the entire circumference of the lake would be 11 miles. The surface area of the lake is 596 acres, it’s average depth is 50 feet.

In this shot, the blue dot is Crawford Pond. It’s a 27 minute drive to Camden and the harbor of Penobscot Bay. I have circled the other lakes we have stayed on in this beautiful part of the State, Hobbs Pond, Meguntecook, and Quantabacook. Pemiquid Pond is just south of this map near Damarascotta, where we have also stayed.

This map of the entire State gives you an idea of why they refer to this part of the State as Mid-Coast Maine.

So yeah, this was my kayak adventure yesterday, a 3.66 mile meandering get to know you paddle which included a lot of gawking, a bit of fishing, and some picture taking. One particular picture stands out. It is so thoroughly Maine...I laughed out loud when I saw it. The people who live on Crawford Pond, like all lake livers, mark areas of shallow water with buoys of some sort, sometimes with colorful retired lobster trap buoys, sometimes with simple plastic milk jugs. But, in a beautiful cove towards the north of the lake, I turned a corner and saw THIS:

Picnic, anyone? When I got closer I noticed the lovely touch of plastic roses in a vase secured somehow to the center of the table because...well, what’s more inviting than a centerpiece of roses on a picnic table in the middle of a lake?

I. Love. Maine.