BELFAST, Maine - It looked like a big, smoldering mound of grass clippings, piled more than two feet deep on a metal grate that rested on several short stacks of cement blocks. Under the grate was a red-hot fire, and smoke billowed from the mound as Dave Carlson poked and stirred it with a long rake.

This was a Maine lobster bake, and the smoking mound wasn't grass clippings but seaweed - about a thousand pounds or so - that Carlson had harvested early that morning from Belfast Harbor and Penobscot Bay.

Carlson and his wife, Sarah, own the Three Tides restaurant in downtown Belfast, and every so often they put together a lobster bake, cooking up a batch of the tasty crustaceans over a hardwood fire in a small area behind their restaurant on the waterfront. Buried under the seaweed along with the lobsters were potatoes, ears of corn, clams, and mussels.

The "shore dinner" sells for $25 to $30, depending on the market price of lobsters, Carlson said.

In a little more than an hour, the food was ready, and we sat down with several other people at a big table to eat. Silverware was provided, but between the lobster with drawn butter, the corn, and the clams, it seemed more efficient to forego table manners and just use our hands for most of the dinner. Fortunately, plenty of napkins were provided, too.

While messily memorable, this certainly wasn't our only encounter with lobsters during a recent trip to the Mid-Coast region of Maine. You can't go into any restaurant here, or any store for that matter, without running across the ubiquitous clawed creatures. Over the course of four days, we sampled boiled lobster, lobster rolls, lobster salad, lobster stew, lobster chowder, and lobster pizza, and we saw lobster statues, posters, T-shirts, hats, flags, and jewelry.

We even watched in disbelief as a live lobster did acrobatics on a restaurant table. (More on that later.)

It's no surprise that lobsters are such a big deal in Maine. The state's fishermen have been hauling them in for generations, and they still harvest more than 40 million pounds of lobster a year, valued at close to $300 million.

We spent much of our Maine visit in Waldo County, a lightly populated coastal area between Portland and Bangor. It's on the western edge of Penobscot Bay, which during the summer is one of the top sailing bays in the world. Unlike better-known tourist spots such as Bar Harbor, Camden, and Kennebunkport, Waldo County has yet to be discovered on a large scale. As a result, it's more laid back - and less expensive - than the bigger tourist towns, yet there's plenty to do here in the fall.

For active types, there's kayaking, canoeing, and hiking along the rocky Atlantic shoreline, as well as bay cruises and windjammer sails. The less adventurous can watch lobstermen tend to their traps on the docks, check out historical sites and beautifully restored old buildings, or explore the many galleries, shops, and wineries of the county's picturesque little towns.

Oh, and did I mention that the restaurants hereabouts serve up the occasional seafood dish?

We were a couple of weeks too late to catch the most intense of Maine's fall colors, which are said to be some of the best in the nation, but we didn't really mind. When it comes to fall foliage, we're still pretty partial to Ohio's Hocking Hills and the upper half of Michigan.

In years gone by, Belfast and its sister city up the coast, Searsport, were both big-time shipbuilding centers. During the 19th century, thousands of wooden sailing vessels were constructed in area shipyards, and the shipbuilders, captains, and merchants built big, beautiful Federal, Queen Anne, and Greek Revival houses in both cities.

Many of them have since been renovated and converted into cozy bed-and-breakfast inns. We stayed at the Penobscot Bay Inn, a rambling wooden complex at the edge of Belfast, located on a hillside overlooking the bay. It has 19 nicely decorated guest rooms and the only full-service restaurant of any B&B in town. Innkeepers Val and Kristina Kurapka bought the place last year after Val retired from a 25-year career in newspaper advertising.

Belfast is split in two by the Passagassawakeag River - try saying that with a mouthful of lobster - which locals wisely refer to simply as "the Passy." Main Street runs downhill to the harbor, and it's lined on both sides with shops, art galleries, bookstores, and restaurants.

Shoppers can browse among the clothing, jewelry, and artwork from Irish, Scottish, and English craftspeople at The Shamrock, Thistle & Rose, or pick up wine or gourmet food at The Clown and local souvenirs at the Purple Baboon. The Green Store is fun to poke around in, with all manner of environmentally friendly products, from natural soap and herbs to gas-powered refrigerators and self-contained composting toilets.

In recent years, a number of artists, musicians, and other creative types have migrated to the area, and USA Today has referred to Belfast as one of the top 10 "culturally cool" small towns in the country. The city has a year-round live theater group and one of the oldest operating movie palaces around, the Colonial Theatre, which opened in 1912 on the same day the Titanic set sail.

It's an easy drive from Belfast to many of the area's attractions, and one of the most popular is the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. The state's oldest maritime museum, it's set up like an old seaside village and includes 13 buildings, some of which are restored homes of sea captains. Inside are nautical charts, ships' logs, paintings of captains and their ships, shipboard tools and furnishings, scrimshaw illustrations depicting whalers and sea battles, and treasures from around the world that local crews brought home from their travels.

A fascinating movie filmed in 1929 and digitally re-mastered and narrated years later shows the brutal everyday life aboard a sailing ship during a harrowing journey around South America's Cape Horn. We later heard that one of the village's buildings contained a lamp made from a whale's eyeball, but we never got to see it.

Also in Searsport is BlueJacket Shipcrafters, the largest model ship builder in the country. For more than a century, BlueJacket has been the official model-maker for the U.S. Navy, and its showroom here has dozens of museum-quality models on display, some with price tags of close to $10,000.

Owner Jeff Marger said his company custom-builds model ships for people all over the world, some costing upwards of $20,000 and taking a year to construct. But for customers who want to build their own models, BlueJacket sells kits for as little as $35, with parts precision-cut by a computerized laser.

Linked to the mainland by a causeway is Sears Island, the largest undeveloped island on the East Coast. Environmentalists have fought for years to protect the picturesque island from industrial development, thwarting plans to build an oil refinery, a nuclear plant, and a cargo port. Winding footpaths crisscross the island's 940 acres of hardwood forests, grasslands, and sandy beaches, and it's easy to spend an hour there, or an entire day.

It was during a lunch stop at Anglers restaurant in Searsport that we were introduced to "Linda the Lobster." Buddy Hall, the restaurant's owner, delights in showing off Linda to kids who come in to eat with their parents.

By holding the lobster just so and gently stroking it for a while, Hall can get Linda to stand on her head unsupported for a few seconds. Then a gentle tap will send the lobster rolling forward into a somersault, to the applause of her audience.

But the kids are an easy crowd, and the applause was even louder when waitresses brought out "buckets of worms" for dessert. A pile of chocolate ice cream is topped off with an avalanche of crumbled Oreos and gummy worms, with the whole mess served in a plastic beach pail with matching shovel.

A few miles up the Penobscot River from Searsport is Fort Knox, Maine's largest granite fort. (No, it's not the fort with the gold in it; that one is in Kentucky) This fort was constructed in the mid-1800s, when tensions were high between the U.S. and Great Britain in a dispute over the Canadian border. It was built to guard the Penobscot River, but was never used; it was manned again during both the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, but again, it never saw action.

The massive fort is a catacomb of rooms and passageways, archways, courtyards, and granite spiral staircases. One of the few remaining cannons is a monstrous 50-ton "Rodman gun" that could fire an iron ball up to five miles. It took eight men to roll the cannon into firing position.

Just up the river and within sight of the fort is Maine's newest tourist attraction, the Penobscot Narrows Bridge & Observatory. The $85 million cable-stayed bridge, which connects the town of Prospect to Verona Island, opened to foot traffic in mid-October, with a December target date for vehicular traffic. The 2,100-foot-long span includes a 420-foot-high observatory atop one of its towers, and also features a special "cradle" for its cables. Only one other bridge in the world uses the same design: the new I-280 bridge that's being built over the Maumee River in Toledo.

Still farther up the Penobscot River is the town of Winterport, where we spent part of an afternoon sampling the products at Winterport Winery. Unlike most wineries, this small operation uses no grapes, instead making its specialty wines from other fruits such as apples, blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, and pears. Among its best-sellers is blueberry wine and Berry Chocolate, a sweet blend of raspberry and blueberry wines with a natural chocolate flavor.

Waldo County may not get the attention that some other parts of Maine do, but after a relaxing few days there, I'll definitely have an answer ready the next time I hear somebody ask, "Where's Waldo?"

Mike Kelly is a retired Blade travel writer.

Contact him at kelly.writer@yahoo.com.

First Published November 5, 2006, 5:53 p.m.