From Peter Adams, Board Chair

As a long-time resident of Maine and an avid boater, I deeply appreciate our beautiful coastline, its wild islands, and MITA's crucial role in providing protection and access to its sites along the 350-mile water trail.

Every year the Maine Island Trail Association posts over 80 logbooks on islands up and down the coast. They are placed on the trail for users to comment, draw, write prose, and record their visit. At MITA, this information is used to compile usage trends and understand visitor demographics. During the fall, staff and volunteers dutifully enter everything into a database - and each year, as the boating season comes to an end, we find ourselves more inspired than ever by our members and the islands we are all working to protect.

From Hells Half Acre - Stonington
Hell? More like heaven! Wonderful weather, wonderful way to teach our children stewardship of the land…(the potty thing was truly a subject of discussion) but we kayaked, swam, explored and had a great two days. Thanks MITA

On October 11th more than two dozen volunteers from the greater Portland area joined the Maine Island Trail Association (MITA), the Ocean Conservancy and the Island Institute in a cleanup of the islands in Casco Bay. The cleanup was the last in a string of semi-annual island cleanups sponsored by MITA spanning the entire coast of Maine. The island cleanups represent just one of the many stewardship services MITA provides along the Maine Island Trail, a 350-mile “water trail” of islands accessible to kayakers and other boaters for day use or overnight camping.

Check out the events calendar for a listing of our fall island cleanups. Be sure to sign up early - they tend to fill up fast!

• Mount Desert, September 13
• Muscongus Bay, September 27-28
• Stonington, October 4
• Casco Bay, October 11

For more info, call 207-761-8225 or e-mail info@mita.org

Do you have a story to tell from your Maine Island Trail Trip? Visit www.mita.org/tales to post your tale and enter our summer contest. Submissions may be humorous, poetic, factual, melodic, or whatever else inspires you.