09/03/2026
🌀 The largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere is off the coast of Maine, and it makes a noise.
It is called the Old Sow, and it turns in the Western Passage between Moose Island, which is Eastport, and Deer Island on the New Brunswick side. When the tide floods into Passamaquoddy Bay, an enormous volume of water gets forced through a narrow channel over an underwater ridge and a deep trench, and the result is a rotating depression that can run around 250 feet across, ringed by smaller eddies that locals call piglets.
The name comes from the sound. When it is really working it grunts and squeals, which is exactly the sort of detail you would assume was a fisherman's exaggeration until you hear a recording of it. It is at its most dramatic roughly three hours off the tide, and boats give it genuine respect. Small craft have been spun, swamped, and in a few cases lost in it.
Only the great maelstrom off the coast of Norway is bigger, which makes this the second largest whirlpool on the planet. It happens twice a day off a working Maine fishing town of about 1,300 people, which is a very Maine way for a world record to sit. âš“
Have you seen the Old Sow from Eastport, and did it look like the pictures or bigger?
