Coastal Maine

Going Up Down East

Frosted with whitecaps, the cold sea reflects a slate-gray sky streaked with silver. The horizon has been lost. Looking east across the North Atlantic, my eyes gaze into infinity as the wind whips the tang of salted air into my nostrils. I turn up the thermostat on my Aerostich jacket liner – the day is cold and the damp air permeates everything. It's mid-May but spring has yet to arrive in Maine.

A couple of weeks on and "The Season" begins, a time when these slender stretches of sand are packed with well-oiled bodies seeking to transform winter pallor into gleaming bronze tones. I don't know how many people arrive at the beaches of southern Maine on a given summer weekend, but a quarter of a million people would be a conservative guess. This state has approximately 35,000 miles of jagged coastline, but 90 percent of the sand beaches are found in the first 35 miles. On a hot weekend in July the stop-and-go traffic on Route 1 can be a nightmare and travel in the popular resort villages is even worse. But today the Yorks are practically deserted and I leisurely cruise along Route 1A....

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