Prophets & Sentinels
One early morning I flew downeast to make a specific photograph off Mount Desert Island. As we took off an incoming sea of fog obscured much of the bay in the muted pre-dawn light. We almost aborted the flight but it was a gorgeous morning and the light, thanks in no small part to the encroaching fog, was exquisite, so on into the rising sun we flew.
Sentinels was made on the outward leg of the flight, as the first tendrils of fog began to cover sleeping Vinalhaven in the muted colors of pre-dawn.
An hour or so later, having accomplished our mission, we set a meandering course for home. By that time the sun was well aloft, and the fog had completely masked all of Penobscot Bay. The only terrestrial evidence was the highest peak on Isle au Haut, the Camden Hills and in the middle of it all, the tops of the turbines, surfacing 300 feet above Vinalhaven’s granite headlands.
Prophets primarily refers to the vision it took on the part of two communities to make this extraordinary project happen. They took on a challenge that had defeated mainland communities possessed of far greater financial resources. They saw the future and they wanted a piece of it and, by God, they just plain did it.
The coda to this is that by the time we were ready to land, the Owl’s Head airstrip was closed due to the fog. We ended up flying off to the west just a bit and landed on the rough extension of a funky little golf driving range where we waited out the fog, later roaring back into the clearing sky and were home for lunch. It was, in all, a perfect morning.
