Bar Harbor, Low Tide Hike #2
Bar Harbor, ME has a population of 5,000, less than my hometown of Island Lake, IL, which I thought was small. But Bar Harbor has tourism. It sees about 100 cruise ships a year and easily a million tourists a year. This town is the "big city" of Desert Island and I can only imagine how hard it is to move around during the busy season. Thankfully it was quiet, well sort of. This was our first outing as a family so we headed out to Bar Harbor. It was low tide and presented an interesting opportunity to walk the coast and check out the tide pools and the shoreline.
This is not a hike that is listed on the REI Trails app but it was a great walk and a very educational day. The tide in Maine ranges almost 12 ft. from high tide to low tide. During low tide, great tide pools are created and available to explore. We highly recommend the day walking along the shore of Bar Harbor.
So the red line is the Bar Harbor low tide hike. The yellow line indicates the Bar Island hike which is available during low tide. The Bar Island hike will be talked about in another post. - Photo is Apple Maps.
Bar Harbor is home to many local boats and hosts cruise ships throughout the year.
This was the start of our walk around the shore in Bar Harbor. The water during high tide rises all the way to the wall.
This might have been one of our best science days in a while. Nina was a little squeamish at first but got into looking for all kinds of life.
So many things to find.
We spent hours walking and searching though the tide pools for all kinds of shells and other life.
Bright Light...
Always the artist.
Someone loved stacking rocks on the shore. Some of those piles where there before she started and you can see them under water during high tide.
More stacks
There are an amazing amount of creatures and shells to find during low tide.
This is Bar Island in the distance. During low tide a path appears and you can walk to and from the island, but if you stay too long you will have to wait until the tide drops again, about 8 hours.
These rock towers are completely under water during high tide.
Low tide seaweed.
This is the same place we walked but at high tide, the water has risen about 12ft.So after our walk on the shore we wandered around town. There were all kinds of fun things to see.
Funny faces in the lobsters.
Hmm, that pier looks interesting...
So this boat is docked in the harbor and half the time it is sitting on land.
Family at Bar Harbor
