Film Diary: A Rainy Saturday in Maine
At the beginning of November, Alex and I took a four day trip to New England as an early Christmas gift to each other. We spent two days exploring Boston before venturing up to Portland, ME, where we had some of the drizzliest, moodiest, Mainey-est weather you could ever imagine. We were happy campers nonetheless, and it made for some great film photos to boot.
We began our Saturday by bundling up and driving over to the Portland Head Light, taking in the views and wondering why they call it a head light rather than a lighthouse.
After getting our fill of solid ground, we hustled over to the local ferry, arriving just in time to take the very rocky, very windy, very cinematic voyage over to a tiny little island called Peaks Island.
As it turns out, not much happens on Peaks Island outside of the summer months. Most of the residents were gone, the restaurants closed, and the (typically rentable) bikes unrentable due to the weather. Fortunately, we brought our car onto the ferry with us, so we opted to drive around the island, stopping every couple of miles or so to explore the rocky coastline.
One of the locals who did stick around for the off-season (a true local, as they were sure to remind us) recommended we stop by Hannigan’s Island Market—the town grocery store that sold pizza and sandwiches—for lunch. The store’s slogan was “We don’t have it…you don’t need it!” It felt like the perfect tagline for the entire island—we loved it.
We split a turkey sandwich (delicious, by the way) in the car and kept an eye on a very good boy who was waiting patiently for his owner to pick up a few groceries inside.
After lunch, we topped off our afternoon with some coffee and pastries from the only other open eatery on the island: a sweet little spot called Baba’s Cafe. We sipped lattes and savored the simple joy of central heating as we kept an eye on the pier through the widow—watching for signs of the next ferry to return us to the mainland.
