Sand Beach is the only real sandy beach on Mount Desert Island, and it is a small one, a curve of pale sand tucked between granite cliffs, about 290 metres long. The sand is made largely of crushed shells and the skeletons of sea urchins and other creatures, ground fine by the waves, rather than the quartz you would find on a beach farther south. The water is cold even in August, rarely warmer than the mid-teens in Celsius, which discourages most swimmers beyond the brave and the foolish. Behind the beach, the peaks of Champlain and Huguenot Head rise in a long ridge of pink granite and spruce.
The Park Loop Road leads to it, a twenty-seven-mile circuit around the eastern half of Acadia National Park, with sections that run one-way along the coast. It is a lovely ride, slow and curving, with the Atlantic constantly in sight, and the road passes through spruce forest, past granite headlands and along the rocky shoreline. The speed limit is low, and rightly so, because cyclists and pedestrians share the corners. Summer weekends are crowded, and the car park at Sand Beach is often full by mid-morning, but in September, after the school holidays, and in October with the leaves turning, the park is quieter and the light is exquisite.
Acadia was the first national park east of the Mississippi, created in 1916 as a national monument and renamed in 1929, largely through the efforts of wealthy summer residents, including the Rockefeller family, who built the network of carriage roads that still wind through the woods. The thunder hole nearby is a rock cleft where waves boom and spray in rough weather, best an hour or two before high tide on a stormy day. The fog, which rolls in off the Gulf of Maine in summer, can cut visibility to a few metres, and it brings damp roads and a sharp, salty chill.
Bar Harbor, about six kilometres to the north, is the main town, with petrol, restaurants, ice cream and lobster in unfair quantities. Ellsworth, on the mainland, has bigger supermarkets and more services. The park charges an entrance fee, and parking is limited, so arrive early. Bring a windproof layer, and if you swim, expect to be quick about it. The cliff path from the beach to Otter Point is a lovely walk if you have the time.