Camping in Acadia

The fall foliage was gorgeous this weekend for our camping adventure to Acadia.  We recently enjoyed camping in Acadia so much that we wanted to return with our five-year-old niece.  She has never experienced camping by the ocean and this was a great opportunity to introduce her to the Maine outdoors. 

I gave up sleeping in tents on the ground a dozen years ago after bailing a tent through three days of rain at Baxter State Park.  Now we throw a mattress in the back of our aging Suburban, leaving plenty of room for my niece to sleep crossways at our heads.  So after supper and roasting marshmallows, we got ready for bed.  The first night we slept in our long johns and I won the battle over having my niece wear a sweatshirt over her top, but sometime in the night she slipped off her socks.  In the morning, our thermometer said 46 degrees and she admitted she was chilly through the night. 

This was one of those weekends when getting dressed just means adding more clothes.  I put my niece’s pants on over her long johns and two jackets over her sweatshirt while I did the same.  After my husband made us a wonderful breakfast on the camp stove, we drove into Bar Harbor.  Come to find out, Columbus weekend is extremely busy in Bar Harbor, especially when three cruise ships are in port.  We were able to purchase the last three seats for an educational lobster boat ride into the bay. 

Our tour guide explained various aspects of marine life to us and our sixty fellow passengers, as the captain drove us to the traps he would pull aboard.  My niece and I were toasty wrapped in our extra sleeping bag, sitting on the bench in the open boat.  We passed around various sized lobsters from the catch of the day, learning how to tell a boy lobster from a girl lobster.  One large female was full of lobster eggs, so our guide demonstrated how to tag her as a producing female.  Under their educational license all lobsters had to be returned to the ocean, so after they were passed among the passengers and thoroughly examined to determine their gender, they were tossed over the side. 

The tour guide also shared other examples of marine life that had been caught in the traps, including a nervous little sea cucumber.  We knew he was nervous because one of their natural responses to stress is to release a jet of water to escape an enemy.  The sea cucumber shooting a stream of ‘pee’ on the floor was the highlight of the ride for my niece.  We passed rocky islands where seals and sea gulls were sunning themselves as we turned to head back to port. 

Back at camp, after supper and more marshmallows, the little girl fell asleep by the fire in her uncle’s arms.  I put her to bed in two pairs of pajamas under her sweatshirt and she was toasty for the night.  As is tradition the adults sat up and played cards by lantern light until we were frozen through and the fire was out. 

Our last morning started crisp and sunny.  After a leisurely breakfast, we cleaned up camp and packed everything back into the Suburban.  We had saved out a bit of raw hamburger from supper to see if we could catch some crabs at the campground wharf.  I put the meat into a net bag and tied it to a short rope.  We walked down to the wharf and let the bait over the side.  In just a few minutes, we could see crabs coming from all directions toward our tempting treat.  As one or two would latch on, I would pull up the bait and my husband would grab the crabs before they ran off the dock.  My niece actually got brave enough to touch one herself.  After catching and releasing half a dozen crabs, we called an end to our camping adventure and climbed into the Suburban for the long ride home, satisfied to have added a new list of creatures to a little girl’s world.