Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay.
Consider you have power half the time on a Maine island parked twelve to fifteen miles off the coast of Rockland in Knox County.
Literally every six hours, one side of your island is energized. Then the next half dozen hours, where you live or work you are on own in the dark. Left to your own devices.
The old diesel generator taking turns feeding power to each half of the Maine island is bone tired. But the other two generators in the fleet sharing the electricity production task load died.
Help is on the way but fails to show up so deal with it.
Mainers are resourceful. Grateful for what we do have and working around the daily obstacles thrown in our pathway.
This week, I had a Maine real estate closing with a widow who’s husband grew up on Vinalhaven Maine island.
John had a lobster boat. Grew up in the fishing village off the coast in Knox County Maine. Breaking down way way out to sea off the coast of Maine happens in choppy sea swells. You get a call, I need help.
Another lobster boat in the dark heads out to rescue tow you back into the Maine island harbor.
Do you think about the waves, the cold frigid temperatures, the danger that some hardworking Mainers face every day?
Miles of shore in the dark in a bobby lobster boat that’s engine quit. Hoping the your radio does not quit too.
Her story hit home. And having babies, raising kids on an island where maybe you can use the ferry.
Or maybe the sea and weather conditions are not just right. And you are stuck on the island for a time. Until the weather forecast conditions improve on your Maine island.
Vinalhaven has roughly 1200, North Haven about 350 of the same kind of friendly year-round individuals on their respective Fox islands.
If you are a regular follower of the Me In Maine blog, you know my fascination with lighthouses.
I am not alone and know others get excited out in the audience with the buzz words Maine lighthouses.
And as luck would have it, Vinalhaven Maine has three lighthouses I don’t have in the photo collection. What are the Maine lighthouse trio? Brown’s light house. Heron Neck lighthouse. Saddleback Ledge lighthouse.
Each lighthouse helps nautical navigation around the Fox Islands of Vinalhaven and North Haven in Penobscot Bay off the coast of Maine.
There is a fourth Maine lighthouse for North Haven named Goose Rocks lighthouse.
Is the “old faithful” diesel generator still laboring, wheezing, doing it’s best to ration the Vinalhaven island’s electricity? No because three wind generators capable of 4.5 megawatts are now twirling overhead harnessing the breeze.
Spinning juice to supply more or less what Vinalhaven and North Haven needs.
The wind power generation project going online live in 2009. All the buzz of power managed by the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative.
Plus there is a submarine cable for power tether on the ocean floor like a giant extension cord to the main land just in case for electrical stability.
I will get to Vinalhaven Maine to collect a four pack of lighthouses to post in a future blog article.
Promise. To learn, share more about early days of Vinalhaven, one of the Fox Islands.
Complete with the rich history about First Nation Red People, granite for the Washington Monument and base of the Brooklyn Bridge. With more to come on boat building, farming, lumbering, horse nets.
Vinalhaven has the distinction of being the first Maine island of lobstermen to unionize. Being 23 miles square.
A tight island community shaped by the rhythm of the tides, the pace of living depends on which season you land here.
Vinalhaven is Maine’s largest island off the mainland with no bridge connection. Could you live full time on a Maine island?
Maine has 4613 coastal islands in her collection to explore.
Vinalhaven Maine has access to much of the lobstering, fishing grounds in Penobscot Bay and further offshore waters.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730