28 May 2011

The foghorn is rapidly becoming part of the normal background noise on the island, along with the breaking seas and the gulls.  The fog is still thick as pea soup outside.  Our morning routine is already shaping up, with me preceding Amy downstairs by twenty minutes to start the heater in the living room, feed the dog, and get coffee rolling.  I imagine this is a routine that has been played out for many years on Seguin, except in former days the keeper would have been lighting a fire in the stove instead of flipping a switch.

We headed down to the cove early in anticipation of the arrival of my parents; due to the stalled cold front they opted to come out this morning despite the weather, as fog and 3 foot seas is easier than clear visibility with 5-7 foot seas.  I had enough time to luxuriate in the view from my composting toilet, then fill our dinghy with air, before the appearance of Lovely Linda in The Cove, carrying my parents and some un-necessaries-but-niceties they brought along for us. 

Much to Darcy’s consternation, it took me two trips in the dinghy to get my parents & the stuff ashore.  I’m not sure what went on in his little pea brain, but whatever the process he decided he just had to jump in the fifty-five degree North Atlantic, and chase me down.  Showing his poodle heritage, he made it all the way out to Lovely Linda where I was helping Mom into the dinghy, and paddled all the way back when I wouldn’t help him.  Not only did he do it, he did it with style.  No splashing and he didn’t even get his head wet.

Darcy coming to help

Having my parents visit, even for a few hours, was fantastic.  They’re great company, and Mother is a top-notch cook; she brought out chicken salad and sourdough rolls to share for lunch.  Any meal I don’t have to cook is a good meal.  Dad & I wandered around the island for a bit, inspecting the buildings, happily he agreed with my assessment on most of it.  They hung out for a few hours, than rolled back to the bottom of the hill to head out.  Before leaving Dad had to work on something, and settled on the fan in the composting unit on the toilet.  It had tripped offline and I had not reset it.  As it turns out, the fan had seized and the plug burnt up in the process.  He got the fan moving again, but allowed himself to be talked into leaving the plug for me to finish up in the morning.

After my folks left I used the low tide as an opportunity to start scoping out mussel beds along the inter-tidal zone on the north side of the island for future harvesting.  I met with some success, but I hope to find more on the southern side.  What I did find tons of were periwinkles, which I intend to learn how to cook, due to the sheer abundance of them.  Amy is dubious but at worst I figure I can clean them and feed them to Darcy, who is not picky.

The sun set without us actually seeing it today.  The visibility never opened to more than a mile, and as I write this between the dark and the fog you can’t see much more than 100’.  There is a moderate E’ly breeze, and the outside temperature is 56F and falling.  The barometer is holding steady at 30.1 inches, where it has been for the majority of the last 24 hours.