Dec 13 2025
The Maine Coast in December
Judy loves the ocean, especially as it presents itself on the Maine coast. To celebrate her 75th birthday, we spent a few days in a suite with an ocean view at The Beachmere Inn in Ogunquit earlier this month. To say December is off-season in southern Maine is something of an understatement. A good number of the shops and restaurants were already closed for the season, and there were never more than a few people around wherever we went.
We got the romantic package and spent a lot of time just lounging about the suite. We did venture out one evening, though, to watch a one-man performance of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol while eating dinner at the Clay Hill Inn. That was interesting. What was almost as interesting was driving around in the darkness, checking out front-yard Christmas decorations in the area. Lots of lights, but no blow-up Santas.
On the second morning of our stay, I went for a walk on the Marginal Way –– a mile-and-a-quarter pathway that hugs the coastline in Ogunquit. The icy, snow-covered path made for tough going, as did temps in the low teens, so I cut it short at Lobster Point Lighthouse and wandered about town instead. But it was good to walk along the rocky shoreline for a short while at the beginning of winter, seeing the ocean in a different way. Beneath a clear sky, there was a peaceful albeit frigid beauty to it. Just the opposite of the ocean’s dark and intimidating attitude when a gale erupted the day before.
Judy loves the ocean and is revitalized by it. I am awed by the ocean’s magnitude, somewhat disoriented by its openness and raw power. It is nothing like the densely forested mountains where I regularly roam. They are claustrophobic by comparison. The ocean is vast.
Most people flock to the seaside to escape the tensions of modern living. During the warmer months, the Maine coast is certainly good for that. But in December the ocean feels more elemental, reminding us that we inhabit a world that is fundamentally liquid and flowing. That’s how it strikes me, anyhow. And some people, like Judy, revel in that feeling.
