I'm in the US at the moment. I spent the past week with my cousins on a tiny island on a lake in Maine, camping, swimming, reading plenty and catching a few rays (not quite as many as I'd hoped). We'd a really relaxing time, just enjoying the wilderness and forgetting about the outside world, as electricity, let alone mobile phone coverage or internet access was non-existant. I finally got to sleep in my 2 second tent, which passed the test of rain and wind. All very cosy.
On morning number 3 on the island (Tuesday) I was woken by a strange clattering noise outside my tent, followed by some snortting and heavy breathing. It was an animal of some description, and judging by the volume of the noises it created, it was rather large. From my vantage point, and perceived safety of my tent, I spotted something large, and dark climbing a tree near the tent where my cousin Kate and her two young nieces were sleeping. The snorting, heavy breathing and smacking of chops continued for about 30 minutes, without the creature moving. At this stage, my bladder was no co-operating, so I decided to risk a dash to the outhouse. As I got out of my tent, Kate whispered loudly, "Una, where are you going?! Can't you hear that? What is it?" I told her which tree it was in and that I would be back in 2 minutes. By the time I got back to her tent, she'd identified it as a bear. Now, with my lack of knowledge of North American wildlife, and general innocence (!) I thought it was something harmless like a .... beaver. No such luck. Our next decision was what to communicate to the two sleeping children. Our plan was to tell them exactly what was happening, act as if we were totally calm and get them up to the cabin where their grandparents were sleeping. Luckily that part went according to plan and they weren't scared, unlike Kate & I.
As you can imagine, the reaction of the cabin-dwellers was one of disbelief at first when they heard our news, but after they came down to see for themselves, they too were a little anxious. We spent the day on off the island and on our return Jack Black, as the girls named him, was still happy out, about 20 feet high in the tree. That night, those of us in the tented village slept in a cabin on the mainland, and the next morning he was gone. Our guess is that he swam over to the island in search of food, gorged himself on wild blueberries (one would imagine a bear that size would need to eat ALOT of blueberries to be full) and spent the day sleeping it off and chilling out in the tree, and swam off at night back to the mainland. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't too keen on sleeping in my tent on my own from then on, so moved in with Kate and the girls. I've a bunch of photos of Jack Black, so will post them in due course.
I'm in Boston right now, and will be here til Tuesday I think. From here I'll go to NYC to stay with another cousin. I'm really looking forward to seeing New York, I have never really spent much time there, so any recommendations are more than welcome!
