Acadia’s Best-Kept Secret

Written By Suzanne Rogers

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Mountain Goat and I are spending the summer in Maine, which, being from California, gives us so many new places to explore. One of several places we wanted to visit was Acadia National Park, with its seashore, lakes and mountains.

One of my goals during the stay was capturing the Milky Way somewhere beautiful. With little familiarity with the park, I asked in a Milky Way FaceBook group for places to photograph it. One of the places suggested was the Schoodic Peninsula. After some cursory research and seeing how spectacular it is, it became the primary place I wanted to shoot.

The weather forecast was all over the place, so I knew I’d need to take the opportunity to photograph it any clear night I could.

Monday night was forecasted to be cloudy, but my own observations were that the skies were clear, so I took a chance and drove the 90 or so minutes from Bass Harbor to Schoodic Point at the southern tip of Schoodic Peninsula. I left our campground as the sun set, knowing I’d arrive at the tail end of blue hour, with hopes of being able to see enough to get a good sense of where to take a photo.

I made my way through the trees and small harbor towns, and as I reached the peninsula, I could see the curving shore with the faint leftover colors of the sunset to the west. I considered stopping, but, unaware that I was on a one-way loop, I figured I might stop back in the same spots on my way home.

My truck was only the second vehicle in the lot when I arrived at Schoodic Point. The warm night air, almost still but with the tiniest breeze, felt like the promise of a pleasant evening as I gathered my gear and locked up the truck.

After donning my headlamp, I crossed the street and stepped out toward the granite waterline, flat sheets of rock cracked and made uneven by millenia of storms, ice and the artistry of the sea. On this day, the waves were almost completely calm, gently lapping at the rocks as the tide slowly rose.

One person sat in a chair, likely having been there since the sunset, which I’d find the next night is lovely here, as the sun sinks alongside Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island this time of year. On this night, the waxing crescent moon hung in the air, and I captured a shot of it with its reflection on the sea, with the lights of Bar Harbor, a once-sleepy town and its neighboring Cadillac Mountain on the horizon.

Crescent moon close to setting over Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island

I moved east to try not to disturb the other visitor and made my way to the waterline. I pulled out my phone and opened the Photopills app to try to find the not-yet visible Milky Way so I could start setting up my shot. I found a wide split in the rocks with the water gently waving in and out and set up my tripod there.

I began adjusting my focus and my settings, and then sat and waited for the skies to darken even more, listening to the sounds of the ocean and watching the crescent moon sink below the horizon.

As I sat on the warm rocks watching the water and the stars, I noticed what looked like small glowing whitecaps in a few spots. I squinted my eyes, looking hard to confirm that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I stood up to turn on my intervalometer to try to capture what I thought it was, and as I stood at my camera, a wave came into the crevice before me and crashed hard on the rocks, spraying a large blue glowing arc onto the water’s surface. My jaw dropped and I clapped my hands over my mouth as I stood in wonderment and awe over the completely unexpected bioluminescence before me. Excitedly, my focus shifted to capturing it with the Milky Way, and I set my intervalometer to the water below me, impatiently hoping for another wave to hit the way this one had, but one never did.

Tail end of blue hour, with more satellites than I know what to do with and hints of bioluminescence in the water

Finally, I moved to another area where I’d been watching the bioluminescence in the small waves that crashed to try to capture it up close. I turned my intervalometer back on and stood by, watching the water for both the bioluminescence and the rising tide, as I was now standing on barnacles and next to seaweed, close to where the rising waves might hit.

I have seen bioluminescence back in California, but always from a cliff high above the ocean, rather than up close, and this was one of the best displays of it I had ever seen. A huge smile plastered across my face, I shook my head in bewilderment several times, watching the bioluminescence explode in the waves crashing on the shore, impatient between wave sets wanting more, more, more!

One of my last shots of the bioluminescence for the night, with the sinking Milky Way core as the backdrop

I moved to a couple of other spots along the water, capturing shots of the bioluminescence as the Milky Way’s core began to drop below the horizon, and finally called it for the night around midnight. I scanned through my photos on my Live View screen, smiling and shaking my head, elated at nature’s magic. I packed up my camera and gear, setting everything into my duffel bag to easily take it inside with minimal disturbance of other campers once I got back to the campground. I put on a playlist and munched on popcorn as I made my way back to camp, passing countless deer that reminded me to stay aware of my surroundings and leave my lead foot behind.

I went to bed eager to get my images sorted and edited, hopeful for at least a couple that really showed what I could see.

Image stats & gear:

My favorite shot from the whole night

Suzanne Rogers
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Just a Little Light Show in New Hampshire