The Portland Logbook
Posts
The Portland Logbook #13

The Portland Logbook #13

This Week in Portland Maine

Jake Newman
April 29, 2025

The Bay Belongs to Them

Out on the water, past the lobster boats and Peaks Island ferries, you’ll catch a set of dark eyes tracking you.

Round head, short snout, a face that looks half Labrador, half alien. Harbor seals: Portland’s real locals.

They’re everywhere if you know where to look: a dark shape offshore, a flash of movement on a rock, gone the second you blink. Built for cold water, bad weather, and minding their own business. Sometimes, you’ll catch one slipping along behind a kayak or popping up near the Peaks Island ferry dock, giving you a once-over before vanishing.

They have always intrigued me. When we go sailing, I swear I see something out in the distance out of the corner of my eye, but the second I focus, it's gone. It seems like it also intrigued other Portlanders enough to name our baseball team after them—the Sea Dogs!

Spring is just beginning, and it brings out the pups, who are slick, sharp-eyed, and already tougher than most things on land. They spend their first weeks clinging to rocky ledges off places like Fort Gorges and Cow Island while their mothers hunt. By summer, they're packed thick with blubber, ready for the cold that never stays gone for long. When winter rolls back in, they scatter: some with family, some on their own.

Full-grown, they stretch five to six feet and weigh 150 to 400 pounds. Their coats are a patchwork of gray, brown, and black and blend right into the stone walls lining the back roads up the coast. They are built to disappear.

You'll usually spot one just far enough away to wonder if you're imagining it. Curious, but not stupid. No wonder sailors mistook them for mermaids. You're a sideshow, nothing more. They've got bigger things to worry about, like dinner. Fish, shellfish, whatever's slow or dumb enough to get caught.

Old fishermen around Portland used to say seals were the souls of lost sailors — the ones who went down in storms and never came back. Maybe that's why, when a seal stares you down, it feels like something more. Like the ocean's keeping tabs.

Want to keep tabs yourself?
Check out Marine Mammals of Maine.

Be honest, when a seal stares you down, it’s because:

COMMUNITY UPDATE

Hi new friends! We’re about to hit 2,000 readers here at The Portland Logbook — That’s about 3% of the city.

This may not sound like much on paper, but when you think about it, it’s a hell-of-a-lot-of people showing up for something real. We are all just a bunch of people who care about where we live and want to see it a little deeper than what’s printed on the postcards.

Creating the Portland Logbook has felt both fast and slow. Building this community, writing one story, adding one recommendation, one tunnel rumor at a time all to bring us [here]. Spring’s almost here, and with it brings a chance to get a little more creative about where this ‘thing’ goes next. The gears are turning. Ideas are stacking up. I'm thinking bigger, and I'm reflecting on how to make it, this, us, whatever you want to call it, even more for us: the people who actually live it.

I appreciate every one of you for being part of this. Seriously. This journey wouldn’t be half as fun without you.

All the best, Jake

Help us hit 5% of Portland! Forward this to a friend who’d get it.

ASK ME ANYTHING ( The Logbook Entries)

Got a question?
Could be about Portland. Could be about finding the good stuff most people miss. Could be something bigger.
If it’s real, I’ll try to answer it.

🖊 Hit reply and send it. No rules. No formality. Just you and me, figuring it out.
I’ll be answering one question in every newsletter

🐾 Adoptable Buddies of the Week! 🐾

🐱 Meet Grapefruit

A quiet guy with a soft heart, just waiting for the right friend (preferably another cat) to show him the ropes. The sweetest things take a little time.

🐱 Meet Big Mac

A big softie with a bigger noggin. Big Mac’s got a lot of love to give—and he’s ready to bring the cozy to your living room.

🐇 Meet Griffith

A little survivor with a heart of gold. Griffith is looking for a calm, rabbit-savvy home where he can live like the royalty he is—free-roaming, adored, and finally home.

🐕 Interested? Check them out here