So… yesterday.

One of the things that is hard to resist, even when I am yearning for more time under the covers, is the sunrise. The Inn* faces east… so much so that – just as the sun is about to rise above the spruces and pine-z, it blasts light into our bedroom. I’m telling you, it’s so bright that its really hard to stay asleep. Though, yes, we do manage to do just that (and we are successful surprisingly often)).

But the whole photography thing.

When I got into it, a few years back, I had no idea how jarring this light could be. And by ‘jarring’, I mean I am all cozy, happily traipsing through flowers with an alligator and his darling guinea pig wife during a particularly vivid dream when, suddenly, my cousin – wearing 1980s cargo pants with a hole in one of the unbuttoned back pockets – starts leaking orange tictacs all over the meadow and they turn out to be nuclear bombs. I figure this out only at the last second, and then they all go off in a fiery blaze of light… at which point I am jarred awake and that’s when I realize that… oh. whew… It’s just the sunrise.

But I am a photographer.

So it’s more like, “Oh. Wow. Thank God Billy didn’t really have nuclear tic tacs and it is only the sunrise.” followed immediately by, “OHMYGOSHLOOKATTHATSUNRISE!”

And then I’m stumbling out of bed and trying to find my sweatpants and weaving perilously down the stairs and out the front door with my camera.

Which is what happened again, yesterday.

Whew.

And I made my way over to the water’s edge just as the sun was about to pop up over the trees and I got my camera ready and…. SPLASH!

And I’m all… wait.

It is silent but for seagulls calling and teeny peep-y (as opposed to pee pee) birds tweeting their way quietly around the bushes and trees and that was a huge splash!

So I’m kind of freaked out.

Because it was way huge-er than a diving bird – and much more awkward.

My splash identification skills are unparalleled.

And I can see ripples way over by another dock, and I don’t have my long lens – the one that would zoom right in on the action like a sniper rifle but way less threatening. So I’m stuck with my wide lens and I train it on the ripples (which you can see in the photo above but hang on I’ll put it here too…)

Okay. So see where the tic tac bomb seems to have gone off? Like, in the sky?

Okay so look below that and you can see ripples in the water… just above the dock/float in the pic. But then – just like you probably did when you zoomed in – I realized it was not just ripples. It was a trail.

Something.

Was in.

The water.

I know.

Stephen King is from Maine – and someday I’m going to be too – so I was trying to channel his ability to create suspense (Don’t worry. I won’t use clowns.)

So I can’t see what is in the water but I’m totally freaked out because I’m on my dock and even though I want to see what this thing is – and know how on earth it made such a huge splash – I am a little ascared that it is going to swim up to me, leap out of the water and onto my dock, and leave me in a bloody heap.

Again. Stephen King.

So I wait… and it never did get all the way to my doc. But this is a close up from one of my photos…

Okay so I looked it up.

I can see ears on it, which means they are protruding, so my research told me it was not a muskrat or a mink.

It is swimming with its body mostly under water (or did – here you can see it’s back and also its tail which I think resembles a dragon’s tail but I couldn’t find anything on dragon settlements in Maine so… it only might be a dragon).

Also otters swim with their bodies mostly under water, but beavers do not.

But other things do, and other things also have protruding ears.

Like bears.

So this could have been a bear… like a small one who is about three feet long and cliff dives. Which would explain the splash.

But then I got to thinking.

Without my long lens, I could not see the beast well enough to identify it. And I did feel a bit threatened. And it was also in the water. And I was alone with no witnesses, all of which seemed to have created the perfect condition for…

The Loch Ness Monster.

I know. I was surprised to realize that too.

And Nessie is from Scotland, which is where Dingles hail from so… there is a connection. Undeniably.

Or.

This is an entirely new species that lives in our little cove in Maine, which has its own name and everything: Rand Cove.

And then it all made sense.

I was in the presence of a heretofore unknown being and my photos were about to go viral and I needed to head in and prepare myself for a call from National Geographic and The National Enquirer (not necessarily in that order).

Randy.

Randy the Rand Cove Monster.

Or a very small bear.

Either way. It was a very cool morning.

Thanks for readin’.

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