The tropical reef tank in Fairfield resident Penny Harkins’s living room is mesmerizing. You see it; you want one. Gazing at it is the next best thing to snorkeling off the coast of Florida or Hawaii. Tropical fish with iridescent stripes and glowing yellows, blues and orange glide by and disappear into pathways between the
The Island’s True Child
The last present under our Christmas tree was the late Dorothy Simpson’s book The Island’s True Child sent by a friend from the island where we summer and where, from about 1907 to 1944, Dot Simpson had grown up. When our house was quiet again, I began to read her memoirs of a childhood on
Through Mapping, Students Explore Their Island
On Dec. 1, Peaks Island Elementary School celebrated the end of a semester-long mapping unit with an evening exhibition of student work. Teachers Wendy Litchfield and Roberta Deane designed a creative mapping unit for their third, fourth, and fifth grade students last fall. The goal was to increase students’ knowledge of Peaks Island’s natural environment
Growing Coral: Building a Reef Indoors Takes Lots of Electricity
One thing is certain: the electric meter is chugging away, says Craig Zievis, a University of Maine student who is experimenting with ways to accelerate the growth of aquacultured corals used in tropical reef tanks. With funding from UMO and the Maine Technology Institute, Zievis hopes his two-year master’s thesis project will provide information that
Newfoundland Flume Tank is World’s Largest
At 13 feet deep by 26 feet wide by 72 feet long, the flume tank at Memorial University’s Marine Institute in St. John’s, Newfoundland, is the largest in the world, circulating some 450,000 gallons of water at up to six feet per second through a complex system of propellers, pumps, and pipes to mimic flowing
Cranberry Report: Cold Dipping
Friday, Nov. 11, 2003. Veterans’ Day. 30 degrees at 6 a.m. A calm morning with not a boat left in the harbor at Islesford. Early that day, the voice of co-op manager Mark Nighman came over the VHF radio telling fishermen in the area to “wave goodbye to the GALE as she heads down east.”
Thon Artwork to Grace Island Schools
Bill Thon of Port Clyde, an artist and sailor known for his paintings and drawings of boats and the sea, has left a bequest of his work to island and other Maine schools. Thon, who died in December 2000 at 94, left some $5 million to the Portland Museum of Art, along with a good
Former Hostage Remembers Islesboro Central School
Islesboro Central School librarians Carolyn Leach and Cindy Gorham re-position Frank H. Reed Jr.’s picture, taken after his release as a hostage during the mid-80s Iranian conflict. The picture and its frame had become somewhat worn, so recently Prim-rose Framing in Rockland refurbished both. Frank Reed, American director of the Lebanese International School, was taken
Students Share Groundwater Research Results with Vinalhaven Community
Communities around the world, as well as small island communities, share one universal need and growing concern – the health and future availability of their water resources. With burgeoning population growth, land development, changing weather patterns and increased possibilities of contamination in one form or another, communities are waking up to the fact that their
Website Tracks Lobsters Up and Down the Food Chain
The website lobstertales.org has a brand new look. Lobster Tales allows communities to track their lobsters through the marketplace to an individual consumer, and also provides each consumer with a detailed description of the fisherman and the specific area where his or her lobster was caught. The project is based on a relatively simple concept