The second day of our trip brought quite the adventure. We decided that we would try to walk out to the Lubec Channel Lighthouse (a.k.a. the Sparkplug). My father-in-law originally became interested in Lubec because he saw this lighthouse listed for sale (it was eventually purchased by someone else). Lubec has some extreme tides, up to 22 feet, and much of the seafloor is exposed during low tide making it possible to walk quite far into the channel.

We started out okay, but soon realized that our footwear was grossly (pun intended) inadequate. The sand looked solid enough from the shore, but as we walked further and further into the channel our feet sank deeper and deeper into what can only be described as “muck.” I am not a “muck” sort of person, and there were points when I thought I was going to scream and/or pass out from the sheer horror of walking (barefoot, out of necessity) through the very soft seafloor mud. It didn’t help that I knew just inches, maybe even centimeters, beneath my feet there were clams, worms, and any number of weird sea creatures that could bite me or, worse!, get stuck between my toes! Yuck!

The lighthouse is actually farther away than it looks and even at low tide there isn’t enough exposed sand to make walking all the way there possible, though we did get pretty close. Along the way we found all sorts of treasures: an abandoned clam rake; sand dollars; an old glass bottle; and a baby crab hiding inside a crab shell. Zane actually slept through most of the chaos, and I have to hand it to the makers of this stroller because it made it out there and back without getting too badly stuck (though there was a bit of a quicksand moment during the return trip). Now we have a story we will be talking about for years to come — and next time we’ll be bringing waders!