Stonington, Maine

A huge part of Stonington's history involves granite, and we were looking forward to visiting the granite museum, but it was closed for the season. So we walked around town, window shopping and talking to folks, and learned that there is an old quarry east of town that's now a park.

It's called Settlement Quarry and is near Webb Cove. There's no direct water access, but we parked our skiff (we call it a skiff now here in Maine) at the lobster packing shed nearby and one of the watermen told us how to get there.

We spent about two hours hiking around on paths like this....

and seeing things like this....

until we got to the top of the park where the quarry used to be. You can see a bit of the Deer Isle Pink Granite there. Although it wasn't from this quarry, this is the granite Jacqueline Kennedy chose for JFK's monument at Arlington.

From the top you can see across Webb Cove and Deer Isle Thorofare, and south all the way to Isle au Haut.

Here and there old pieces of mining equipment sit rusting amid the chunks of granite and in Webb Cove there's an old crane sinking into the mud.

Crossing the thorofare we saw this schooner heading west. Notice how their skiff provides the power? Lots of these old schooners have no engines, so they secure their skiffs at the stern, power them up, and motor around that way.

Back at our boat, we enjoyed this late season sunset and contemplated the arrival of a bad boy named José. It seems he might be coming this way.