The Downeast Coastal Conservancy succeeds in many land preservation projects when it works in coordination with other organizations: Washington County towns, local community groups, other land trusts, as well as with energetic individual volunteers. The Maine Island Trail Association is one of DCC’s most stalwart teammates in the protection of our outermost properties. MITA helps to monitor and care for those islands whose owners permit public access.
Last week DCC Stewardship Director Ryan Mola and Christina Hassett, MITA’s Downeast Director, brought volunteers together for a morning’s adventure to collect ocean-borne trash from DCC’s South Addison Islands.
We traveled in an aluminum MITA skiff to Sheep Island, a beautiful destination with a stunning sandy beach. Sheep is a little known gem and hosts one of DCC’s few campsites for coastal travelers. Oral histories suggest that Passamaquoddy members and early local settlers for centuries have enjoyed stopping at Sheep Island. On this day, we hunted the high tide line for lost buoys, plastic bottles, strands of rope, and washed up lobster traps.
Later we joined the other half of our team of volunteers at Tibbetts Island. Tibbetts Island, like Sheep, used to pasture summer flocks of sheep. Now in the absence of those animals, Tibbetts has regrown a dense spruce forest. Our landing site still supports a small but lovely gooseberry grove whose fruit was just coming ripe. Yum! Our volunteers filled both skiffs with bagged trash and collected traps. At the end of our morning’s efforts, we settled in for a picnic lunch on the beach while being serenaded by the nearby bell buoy.
MITA and DCC will join forces again on August 11 to clean Rodgers Island off of Lubec in Cobscook Bay. Rodgers is an important nesting area for Bald Eagles and stopover site for migrating shore birds to feed.
If you enjoy getting out on water and exploring wild Downeast islands, please join us on another adventure! You can contact Ryan at ryan@downeastcoastalconservancy.org or call (207) 255-4500.
Michael, our skiff driver, has been a volunteer with the Maine Island Trail Association for 9 years.
Heading out to Sheep Island in the MITA skiff
Ryan and Michael remove seaweed tangled in old trap rope on Sheep Island
The last of the summer’s Blue Flag Iris on Tibbetts Island
Christina Hassett, MITA’s Downeast Regional Director, (right) and MITA volunteer enjoy their picnic lunch on Tibbetts Island beach