At dawn in the idyllic town of Bar Harbor, Maine, the ocean glows in shades of charred orange. The sun slips out from behind nearby islands, and seagulls call to one another over the lull of waves breaking against the rocky shore. It’s the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend, and the town is still asleep.
By daylight a thick, wet fog descends onto the whole of Mount Desert Island, home to both Bar Harbor and the picturesque Acadia National Park. Distant peaks disappear behind a veil of clouds, and a low, steady horn is the only sign of the arrival of the Norwegian Breakaway—a hulking cruise ship that is 200 feet longer than the Titanic was and holds almost 1,000 more passengers—for which Ocean Properties, Bar Harbor’s largest hotelier and the operator of the only dock in town that can disembark cruise passengers, has been waiting.
