Jewel II

Jewel Island
N 43 41.274 W 70 05.469

We decided to spend a few more days to enjoy Casco Bay with this spendid weather. We're back at Jewel Island. This island is so nice, that it's hard to imagine any of the other ones being nicer.

The cliffs on the edge of this island are of some kind of very hard stone. It could be granite, but I think of shist or flint instead. The stone flakes. Bushes along the tops are rose hips. Millions of rose hips. The trees are very big and very old.

I hiked today to the south end of the island. I climbed the two big lookout towers. In WWI and WWII, Jewel Island was set as a defense post against German U boats. They actually fired on a U boat one day. The tallest tower is 7 stories high and the view from the top is great. On the ground are numerous ruins of buildings. I also found a circular gun mount for a very large gun, perhaps 14 or 16 inch gun. It reminds me of the movie, The Guns of Navaronne. I also found underground passages to
the ammunition magazines. It was very interesting for me as an engineer to see how the magazine passages are designed to conduct blasts away from other munitions, and how there are places for people to duck in to in order to survive a passing blast wave. Boy, that's a scary thought having to make use of those in an emergency.

We were here last week with Nick, but I couldn't motivate Nick to come ashore with me to explore. Too bad, he would have loved the things I found today.

Tropical storm Hannah is supposed to pass here Saturday night. We're looking for a safe place to put up for that night. We're also going to meet our friends Gerry and Phyllis on Saturday and to meet my cousin Brian in Portsmouth, NH next week, and to pick up my sister Nancy in Marblehead after that. Nancy will sail to Cape Cod with us. We've really had a great year with family and friends.