Maine Minutiae : The Coast and Islands of Maine

If you were to measure the coastline of Maine from the southwest to the northeast it would be only 228 miles. Having said that, you could have knocked me over with a feather to find out that Maine has almost 3500 miles of shoreline! That's more than California and 46 other states! Only Florida and Louisiana (lots of bayous there) have more shoreline than Maine! I can believe that because there are so many rivers and streams in Maine. Not to mention over three thousand islands in the state!  Knowing that, it's easy to see where the almost 3500 miles number comes from. The coast of Maine provides some of the most picturesque scenery in the world. I lifted this  borrowed this from waterfrontpropertiesofmaine.com, "Some 25,000 years ago, Maine was covered with ice thousands of feet thick. Since the big melt of that Ice Age, which formed the many peninsulas, great bays and islands of the coast of Maine, since the Pilgrims' very first landing in the New World on this "rockbound coast" (not at Plymouth), since the mid-1800's when coastal steamers and trains began bringing summer visitors - the coastline of Maine has remained one of the most spectacular regions in the entire world, its natural beauty largely unspoiled by man or time". I've lived here in Maine for over four years now, and I've seen probably half of its coastline, so let me  repeat what I just wrote a sentence ago : "the coastline of Maine has remained one of the most spectacular regions in the entire world, its natural beauty largely unspoiled by man or time". True, that