BAR HARBOR

Corrected waypoint: 44° 23.55’N 068° 12.17’W

4th ed. Cruising Guide page 322

Click here if there is no index to the left

Charts: 13323, 13312, 13318

Chart Kit: 73, 23

Mount Desert region overview chart Harbor chart Breakwater chart

BAR HARBOR was called Eden when it appeared on the map in 1796. Set against the awesome mass of Cadillac Mountain and with the bold islands and Schoodic Peninsula lying offshore in the sparkling waters of Frenchman Bay, it is easy to see why. But Eden was not named for its staggering beauty. Instead, Massachusetts, which at the time controlled all of Maine, named it after an obscure Englishman. The locals, being of a more practical nature, called it Bar Harbor for the long gravel and sand bar extending across the head of the harbor, and after 125 years of their stubbornness, the name of the town was officially changed.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
In the mid-1800s with the advent of direct steamer service from Boston, Bar Harbor developed into a summer Eden for the very wealthy, who built the vast hotels and great “cottages” that still line the streets. But now, Bar Harbor is an Eden for the everyman. The cottages have new lives as colleges, museums, nursing homes, and inns, and the streets are jammed with the festive bustle of tourism from dawn until late at night.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
As a yachting center, Bar Harbor is small compared to Southwest or Northeast Harbor, but the town has a variety of attractions. There is a constant coming-and-going of boats of every size and description—from the Nova Scotia ferry to traditional schooners and numerous excursion vessels. The QE2 and other cruise liners make Bar Harbor a regular port of call, sightseers line the wharf and scrutinize every move, and a few fishermen actually manage to make a living amid the fray.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAVE VIOLATED
As a Port of Entry, Bar Harbor is serviced by the Bangor Customs Office (207-947-7861, 207-945-0146), but entry is simplified by a customs officer who is in Bar Harbor every afternoon for the arrival of the Cat ferry returning from Nova Scotia. Ideally, call customs before 1 PM.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
Approaches. Harbor chart. All of the moorings and shore facilities of Bar Harbor are east of the bar connecting Bar Island to Mount Desert, and the approach is without dangers except in fog. The usual path from the south is east of bold Bald Porcupine Island, which has cliffs at its southern end. It is also possible to run between the breakwater west of Porcupine Island and the Mount Desert shore. The breakwater is covered at high, but its western end is marked by a white beacon.
PLEASE RESPECT AND SUPPORT THE WORK THAT HAS
In fog, the real dangers lie in the amount of relatively high-speed vessel traffic coming and going from Bar Harbor—the ferries, the excursion boats, and the cruise ships. Monitor your radio and place a securité call for peace of mind.
BROUGHT YOU THIS INFORMATION. BUY THE GUIDE!
Anchorages, Moorings. East of the large town pier, Bar Harbor maintains a number of rental moorings separated from the private moorings to the north by an approach channel. A mooring can be reserved by calling the harbormaster (Ch. 09; 288-5571). The harbormaster also rents overnight dockage on the two town floats east of the pier with 8 to 9 feet at low.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
You can anchor outside of the moorings in 15 to 30 feet at low with good holding ground and fairly good protection from the breakwater to the south and the surrounding islands. Allow plenty of room to swing, since the first part of the ebb runs over the bar to the north and the current can hold boats at different angles to the wind.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
A mile north of town, just beyond the ferry terminal, the Bar Harbor Regency Hotel marina can accommodate yachts up to 120 feet, with deep water along the outer floats.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAVE VIOLATED
For the Boat. Municipal Pier (harbormaster, Ch. 09, 16; 207-288-5571). Floats on the east side of the pier are for pleasure boats; floats on the west side are for fishermen. Overnight dockage is rented by the harbormaster, whose office is on the pier. Water and electricity are available.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
Harbor Place (207-288-3322). Harbor Place is the building next to the municipal pier, owned by and home to Bar Harbor Whale Watch. Their fuel dock, however, is open to the public, with gas, diesel, water, and pump-outs. Owner Bob Collier also has five or six rental moorings. Reservations should be made in advance at 288-5410.
PLEASE RESPECT AND SUPPORT THE WORK THAT HAS
Fisherman’s Landing (207-288-4632). This commercial wharf pumps diesel west of the municipal pier and Harbor Place, but their float dries out at low.
BROUGHT YOU THIS INFORMATION. BUY THE GUIDE!
Bar Harbor Regency Hotel (Ch. 09, 16; 207-288-9723). The Regency is located north of town and the Porcupine Islands and the Cat ferry terminal. They have slips for transients to 160 feet and one mooring. Water, ice, electricity, showers, and laundry are available, but no fuel. Visitors may eat at the hotel or have food delivered to the floats.

Bowden Marine Service (207-288-5247). Bowden specializes in sales and service of outboards and sterndrives. Their products include Yamaha, Mercury, and Avon.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
For the Crew. Restrooms and phones are located on the town pier by the harbormaster’s office. From there, Main Street (with all the lampposts) heads up the hill, and Cottage Street leads off to the right. On Cottage, you’ll find Don’s Shop ’n Save, the Post Office, a Federal Express box, fax and copy services, a liquor store, a hardware store, and several bicycle and kayak rental outfits. Also on Cottage is the 1930s art deco Criterion Movie Theater, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still showing movies.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
Continue up Main to find a natural foods store at the corner of Mount Desert Street and a laundromat behind Burwaldo’s General Store. The liquor store is in the same building as the laundromat—a dangerous rainy-day combination. A seafood market is across from Burwaldo’s, and the new YMCA, where you work up a sweat or shower it off, is a few blocks farther, on Park Street.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAVE VIOLATED
If you take it black, you can still get a cup of coffee for 22 cents at the old-fashioned soda fountain at West End Drug, but you’ll be bumped up to 27 cents if you want cream.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
Bar Harbor probably has more restaurants per square mile than anywhere on the Maine coast, and by walking the downtown streets you’ll discover most of them. Fisherman’s Landing, on the waterfront, offers lobsters in the rough and a waterfront bar. Rosalie’s, on Cottage Street, makes superb pizzas while you watch. Nakorn Thai, on Rodrick Street, serves excellent Thai food. Another favorite is Havana (288-2822) with a Latin flair. Elsewhere you’ll find superb French, Italian, Mexican, and Downeast fare.
PLEASE RESPECT AND SUPPORT THE WORK THAT HAS
For a Mount Desert dessert, stop in at Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium and try the lobster ice cream. Inventor Jeff Young says that the salty flavor of the lobster goes well with sweet vanilla. “But,” he adds, “I’ve also got a few things in there that kind of beat the fishy taste.”
BROUGHT YOU THIS INFORMATION. BUY THE GUIDE!
Bar Harbor has no shortage of taxis, and it is on the free Island Explorer shuttle route for exploring the rest of the island. Long-term parking can be arranged at either the ferry terminal (207-288-3395, 800-341-7981) or the airport (207-667-2611). The Mount Desert Island hospital can be reached at 207-288-5081.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
Things to Do. There is no end to the exercise you can get around Bar Harbor. At halftide or lower, you can cross the gravel bar at the head of the harbor and explore the western half of Bar Island, part of Acadia National Park. Another pleasant walk starts in front of the venerable Bar Harbor Inn, east of the town pier, and leads south along the shore for a half a mile to Grant park with its balancing rock.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
Most bookstores sell guide books to the hikes and climbs in Acadia National Park, and the free shuttle can get you to their trailheads. Even rock climbing instruction can be arranged through Acadian Mountain Guides (288-0342, 288-8186). Lightweight mountain bikes can be rented on Cottage Street for touring the miles of carriage roads that wind through the interior of Acadia National Park. The moderate grades meander through spectacular scenery, and the bikes are so well suited to the terrain that it almost seems as if the roads were built for the bikes. Take lunch and liquids with you. Sea kayak tours and rentals can be arranged through several outfitters on Cottage Street.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAVE VIOLATED
If you’ve gotten your fill of fitness on the boat, tour buses depart several times a day from the town green above the town pier to circle Acadia’s Loop Road and climb Cadillac Mountain. Call National Park Tours (288-3327) or Olie’s Trolley (288-9899). Numerous nature, whale, and sightseeing cruises offer daily trips into the bay. The three-masted schooner Natalie Todd and the converted sardine carrier Francis Todd sail from the dock at the Bar Harbor Inn. Or for some real sailing, gliders leave from—and hopefully return to—the airport (667-SOAR).
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
Mount Desert Street, off Main, is one-stop shopping for Bar Harbor history. The Abbe Museum, in a newly renovated shingle-style building, celebrates the history of Mount Desert’s earliest inhabitants. The Jesup Memorial Library picks up the story with an exhibit on the “rusticators” and their summer cottages, visitors, hotels, steamers, and the Green Mountain Railway. And “Ledgelawn,” one of the last great cottages, built in 1904 by a wealthy Bostonian, is open to the public. The sweeping staircase, the grand fireplace, and the original furnishings are monuments to the elegance of old Bar Harbor, much of which was lost in the disastrous fire of 1947.
PLEASE RESPECT AND SUPPORT THE WORK THAT HAS
For natural history, visit the Natural History Museum at College of the Atlantic (Ch. 16, 288-5016). Less than a mile north of the town pier, the waterfront campus can be reached by land or sea. The College has several large guest moorings and 11 feet of water at low on the end of the float. You can also anchor off in 15 to 30 feet. By land, walk out West Street to Route 3.
BROUGHT YOU THIS INFORMATION. BUY THE GUIDE!
The campus features a former summer estate appropriately named “The Turrets,” and you can enjoy the lovely, historic terraced gardens, waterfront landscape, and pebble beach for a quiet stroll or picnic. The museum displays birds, mammals, and the huge skull of a finback whale and has interpretive programs and a natural history speaker program. The college is headquarters to the Allied Whale Project, which studies whales in the Gulf of Maine.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
A more touristy but still interesting stop is the Bar Harbor Oceanarium (244-7330), 5 miles north of town on Route 3, with exhibits on marine life that include whales and live harbor seals. Whale-watching is big business in Bar Harbor. The 92-foot whale-watching catamaran Friendship IV cost an estimated 1.5 million dollars, and it can take you to the whales at about 26 knots.
COPYRIGHT 2002 DIAMOND PASS PUBLISHING
For mammals of a different kind—and certainly this is why you have sailed so far!—Jackson Laboratory is the world’s largest breeder of genetically pure mice for mammalian genetic research. It is also Bar Harbor’s largest employer. More than 700 pure mouse strains have been bred for decades, and two-million mice are shipped annually to labs worldwide for research on cell biology, immunology, genetics, pathology, and drugs. The lab (288-3371) is located south on Route 3, 1.7 miles from the waterfront, and it offers a fascinating, hour-long presentation for visitors several afternoons a week.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAVE VIOLATED
Throughout the summer season, the Bar Harbor Festival and the Arcady Music Festival hold regularly scheduled concerts, and many of the bars have live music. There are two dinner theaters in town. In July and August, evening band concerts are performed on the Village Green twice a week.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
For a real side trip, the Cat, a high-speed catamaran ferry leaves Bar Harbor each morning, blasts to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 2 3/4 hours at 55 mph., and returns the same day. There is live entertainment aboard, as well as duty-free shopping, friendly bars, good birdwatching, and an ocean cruise with someone else worrying about the navigation. Call 288-3395 or 800-432-7344 from within Maine, or 800-341-7981 from out-of-state. The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce can be reached at 288-5103.

Many thanks to Roger Ford for the waypoint correction, above.