I had thought that Brad and Wyatt's Bike Shop on Peaks was the most trusting and adorable bike rental store in New England, but I quickly found that it has steep competition in the Bicycle Man, run by Mac Passaro. Mac has found his mission in life, and it is to give everyone on Great Chebeague a free bike. All I had to do was sign a piece of paper, in which I promised to behave in a seemly fashion (and to absolve Mac of legal responsibility), and a nice ten-speed was all mine. Moments later, I was cycling down the quiet roads of the island, admiring Queen Anne's lace, black-eyed Susans, and fields of wild clover.

Out on the bay were sailboats and lobster buoys, and on the far shore was the silhouette of the massive Central Maine Power plant, a structure that didn't improve the view but didn't wholly wreck it either. I was left with the feeling that Great Chebeague is a much quieter, softer place than Peaks, the kind of island where I could imagine renting a house for a week or a month, spending my days sitting on the front porch with the latest Dennis Lehane novel and drinking iced tea.

That night, I had dinner at the hotel. The bartender who had driven me here, having learned that I like mojitos, had sent to the mainland for fresh mint so she could make me one. I drank it on the grand porch of the hotel, enjoying the sunset. For a while I talked to a man seated next to me; that he turned out to be Dana Street, owner of Portland's best restaurant, the Fore Street Grill, provided reliable testimony to the excellence of the food on Great Chebeague. After a while, I went into the restaurant and had supper—steamed lobster, melted butter, and a perfect glass of chardonnay—and watched the sky turn scarlet.

At 6:25 the next morning, I was on the dock when the ferryboat from Cliff Island arrived. I'd arranged to spend the day with the captain, Gene Willard, and I was hoping that he wasn't going to have a peg leg and say things like "Aye, aye!" As it happened, Captain Gene is young, good-looking, very funny, and, as my mother might say, "sharp as a button."

I'd asked Captain Gene to take me to some of Casco Bay's more obscure islands, and it was clear that the prospect appealed to him. "I grew up on these islands," he said. "I know every one like the back of my hand." Later, after he'd docked the huge ferry, the Macquoit II, with the ease of someone pulling a Taurus into a parking spot, he escorted me onto a small boat. By mid-morning, we were sailing toward Little Chebeague, which is owned by the state of Maine and is available for use by anyone who can find himself a boat in which to get here.

During the Second World War, Little Chebeague was the R&R center for the North Atlantic Fleet, and even now a few abandoned military buildings stand along the shore. Before that, Little Chebeague was the site of an elegant hotel and a handful of summer cottages. All of these are gone, but a series of signs has been put up—apparently by one individual, who has taken personal responsibility for maintaining the history of the island—showing where things used to be. Among the many admirable contributions of the island's curator was a brand-new swing hanging from the branches of an oak. Captain Gene said that the man spends any number of hours here, happily swinging away all by himself.