Quick Update

To our readers,

Last week I didn't have time to post, this week I have the time, but the photo uploader is not working.  As I wrote in my initial post, it's always something with Seguin.  To all of those concerned, the dog is just fine, and returning to the island with us tonight.  Thanks for all the comments, keep them coming!

-Nate, Amy, & Darcy Dog

09 June 2011 Hair Of The Dog

I know what you’re all thinking, “Look at that, it only took them two weeks on the island to lose it and go on a bender….”.  Quite to the contrary, we have not been overindulging, but it did only take us two weeks to get sick of a filthy dog every night.  So this morning, we shaved the poodle.

It costs an amazing amount of money to have your animal professionally groomed.  More than I want to spend.  So, like any good do-it-yourselfer, I watched it being done once or twice, bought the clippers, corralled the pooch, and went to.

After two hours spent struggling with clippers and a resistant animal, it turns out I cannot groom my dog.  Oh, the bulk of the hair is off of him, and he is much less smelly than before, so in those terms I was successful.  However referring to what is left of his coat as “patchy” would be being polite.  Personally I think it gives him character.  Amy tells me if dogs could be embarrassed, he would be hanging his head in shame. 

After Darcy had been released from the torture of the clippers, Amy & I had to return to more mundane tasks of being Keepers.  We went to the bottom, cleaned out the composting toilet and leveled the cone, put together the new lawnmower for use at the bottom (for those of you keeping score we are now tied 3-3, with working and broken mowers), and finally hauled some more rock up the hill for trail maintenance.

Knowing the forecast was iffy for the afternoon & evening, I opted to go for my third swim of the year to clean off the worst of the grime, then do some cooking.  I put together pizza dough and produced the first island pizza of the summer just as the promised bad weather reached us.  It didn’t rain as much as I would have liked (our gardens will probably need to be watered soon) but the lightening show was impressive.   After dinner we played a game of cribbage, read for a while, and went to bed.

10 June 2011 Poker Face

Those who know me well know I do not have a poker face.  Most of the time, particularly when I don’t have time to mentally prepare a response, my expression completely betrays whatever emotion I am feeling.  As one half of the public face of the Friends of Seguin, I will have to learn to control this to some extent, as I’m pretty sure our visitor took offence this afternoon when I laughed in her face.

I think it’s forgivable- you see I was talking a bit about the lighthouse, and out of the blue she asked me “You don’t really climb up that hill every day do you?”.  Holding steady, I replied “why yes I do, five or six times a day actually”.  The look of horror this precipitated on her face made me lose my composure completely.  It wasn’t the question itself, so much as the fact that she obviously hated the hill so much she was convinced that everyone hated it, and that made me crack up.  And she didn’t even compliment the work I was doing on the trail.  Quite the opposite, when her daughter started asking how to apply for the caretaker job, her mother pointed out I spent my day hauling rocks up the hill, and that there was no television.  As a deterrent.  It takes all kinds I suppose.

Aside from our two visitors (who admitted being overwhelmed by the view, even if underwhelmed by the climb) the day passed as days do.  Taking advantage of the warm & sunny weather, we spent the day mowing grass, weed whacking, hauling rocks, changing oil in the lawnmowers, doing minor repairs on the grounds, and so on.  Now that Amy & I have figured out how to live on Seguin we have begun the process of prioritizing work projects.  We came to the conclusion that as presentation is everything, we need to focus on making the place, particularly the public areas, look sharp.  So the next couple of weeks will be spent cleaning, spreading a little paint, straightening signs, cleaning up beach trash, making the trails accessible, and so forth.  You should all come to visit and critique our work.

I wrapped up the day filling the cistern and plucking at the mandolin.  Predictably, now that I have had a lesson, and have actual exercises to work on instead of just picking at tunes, Amy has driven instrument & I outside, and out of her hearing.  The sun set with a light SSW’ly breeze blowing, mostly cloudy skies, temp around 60F, calm seas, and barometer at 30.04” and rising. 

11 June 2011 On My Own

Today was not the happiest of days on Seguin Island, as it ended with me holding down the fort by myself.  The short story is Darcy Dog injured himself Friday morning in a way I assumed to be not serious, and by this morning he had proven me mistaken, as I was carrying him everywhere and if I let him go, he would slink under a scrub pine to hide.  Good thing I’m not a vet.

If the beast were not in what appeared to be serious pain there would be two comical elements to this.  First I have considered repeatedly the actions to take if a person gets hurt on island, I had never thought about Med-Evac for a dog (even now it feels silly to write).  Secondly my horrible barber skills, funny the day before, have joined forces with his injured leg to turn him into a truly wretched looking little animal. 

As luck would have it, Ethan had a charter out for fishing today, and I got in touch with Leeward on VHF, and convinced him to swing through in the afternoon to pick up Amy & Darcy.  The transfer from shore, to dinghy, to boat, was an interesting process in the way that Seguin makes processes interesting.  Unfortunately, again, we did not have a camera in attendance.

Dogs have trouble standing up in little rubber dinghies due to the curious ways they flex & move in the waves.  Knowing this, and knowing Darcy had only three of his legs at his command, it was obvious he would need to help getting out to Leeward.  Ah-ha!  What about a box?  I prepped half of a banana carton for Darcy to lie in on the transit foolishly thinking he would be compliant.  I hefted him up, tried to put him in the box, got scratched by flailing paws & yelped at loudly, and then got disgusted looks from the mutt as if he were saying “you really thought I’d go for that?  Your move big guy”

The easy way gone, the only other thing to do was to hold him as I rowed out to Leeward.  At this point we needed video more than a still camera.  I launched the dinghy into three foot surf, had Amy climb in, ran up the beach, got the dog, ran back down the beach, handed the squirming pooch to Amy, pushed the bow back into the surf, got one pull on the oars only to find the weight of Amy & Darcy with nothing in the bow had the stern in the sand, the next sea broached us right back on the beach, I hopped out again… Eventually we got underway for Leeward.

While the beach sounded like the hard part, it was not.  Amy could not climb from dinghy to boat holding Darcy Dog, so he was handed off to me to hold while Amy crossed decks.  The problem here being with me holding the dog, no one was holding the dinghy into the side of Leeward.  Anyone see where this is going?  Amy made the famous split as the two craft separated, Ethan was trying to grab her, and I could do nothing, as Darcy was spazzing in my arms due to the commotion.  Although Amy managed to board dry I will always treasure the image of Ethan holding onto her shoulders while the rest of her body formed a perfect concave shape trying to stay out of the water.

Fortunately, all’s well that ends well, and after I watched Amy & Darcy fade off into the mist I put the dinghy to bed, then walked up the hill to a shower & a long nap for myself while I warmed up.  As I hit the rack, the temp was in the low 50’s, with light SSE’ly airs, and passing showers.  Visibility was reduced in patchy fog, and I’m anticipating worse weather coming. 

   

12 June – 14 June 2011 Malaise

Monasticism, while closely associated with medieval Catholicism, was a movement that took centuries to develop.  The progenitors of this movement were Christian hermits, notably in Ireland, who would go out into the wilderness and live in caves.  These proto-monks would spend years like this in complete isolation and poverty.  I’m fairly certain, religious convictions aside, they were nuts.

The past three days on Seguin, alone, have proved to me that human company is a good thing.   I did not go crazy, I did not have any long conversations with the gulls, and I continued to practice good hygiene.  What did happen, is a feeling of lethargy so completely settled over me, that I did very little else but read five & one half books.  As if the isolation weren’t enough, the weather was unremittingly cold, windy, and damp, with visibility so poor at times I could not see the bottom of the hill.  Given all of that, and the fact that I had a house instead of a dank cave, clothes instead of rags, and food instead of grubs, I have no idea how those Holy Men did it.  I mean, if things kept going this way much longer, my flesh would not be simply mortified, it would be molding!

I did get out and move around for a couple of hours every day simply to stretch my legs and to inhibit colonies of spores from taking up residence.  I did spend one day resurrecting the mooring gear to be installed in the cove.  Several hours of cutting, untangling, and then working with a propane torch, sledge, and pipe wrench, resulted in four complete sets of mooring shackles, swivels, and buoys.  Now we just have to find the anchors & pennants sitting on the bottom.  About the only other useful thing I did was to salvage a hundred fathoms of line off of the rocks to use for something later on, all neatly coiled in the Boathouse.

During my nightly checks with shore, I found out Amy is enjoying her time at my folk’s house, and Darcy Dog has a broken hip.  I like the little nipper very much, however this will make the second surgery on him in less than two years, and I am unimpressed.  After two mutts that were pound rescues and cost us nothing in medical expenses until the end was near, and one purebred that is costing me as much as good used car, I have decided to never again get a dog with papers.  I don’t even have papers.  Give me a good used mutt any day.  That said, Darcy Dog will make his triumphant return, a little later in the summer.

In conclusion, while the Irish Hermits may have found this mode of living useful, and it may very well have granted them deep insights, what it has granted me is a profound desire for sunlight and human interaction.  I also have come to the realization that everybody, except for Amy (only because she gets three days ashore in warmth & with clean water), would have been happier if Darcy had not broken his hip.  I am looking forward to the boat tomorrow.        

16 June 2011 Back on Track

With the return of Amy to the island, or perhaps the return of sunshine, my motivation came surging back as well.  Much to Amy’s annoyance I shot out of bed and chivied her into working as soon as breakfast was done.  We swept & swabbed the entirety of the duplex, and stretched out the area rugs in the sunshine for a bit.  Sanitation work accomplished, Amy began organizing the gift shop, while I stained the museum porches- Anne Bridgeman & Rick Mayo spent Wednesday sanding them for me. 

We got all of this done before lunch, as we had no visitors.  We could have had some, as a ketch spent the night on our mooring in The Cove, but they did not come up to say hello.  Now I cannot speak for past or future keepers, but for this summer, I will have hot coffee (Irished up at request) and time for a gam with fellow sailors.  Always.  Amy & I may be roughing it to a certain extant, but we have a few more comforts than if we were on an extended sailing trip.  So you cruisers heading north or south along the coast, if you stop at Seguin, be social, come and see me.  I’ll hook you up.       

While the morning was quite, the afternoon brought some human contact.  Amy & were walking down the tram when I noticed a small power boat anchor right on a ledge on the south side of the island- this is not usual.  Then I saw no one was in the boat, which made me what my friend Briede refers to as “suspiciously aware”.  Deciding this was worth investigating I went out to the Cobblestone Beach where I found a small dinghy sitting on the rocks, and met a sunburned fellow picking up driftwood. 

I introduced myself “Hullo, I’m Nate, the caretaker” to which he replied “Hullo, I’m Charlie the beachcomber”.  I observed that south side was not normally where folks came ashore and I was concerned about the empty boat.  He thanked me for my concern and said he was right where he wanted to be.  Shouldn’t we all be so lucky.  We then shared a conversation as to where to score the best pieces of driftwood on Seguin & elsewhere, and then parted ways.  I last saw his craft headed towards Sheepscot Bay.  So ended my interaction with Charlie the Beachcomber, who was where he wanted to be. 

After Charlie took his leave, Ethan brought out some of Amy’s relatives, Jane and Bob Picket, for a visit.  They brought us some fantastic biscotti, saw the light, brought Amy up to date on family gossip, and headed back to the mainland after a pleasant visit. Amy wrapped the evening up knitting until her hands hurt while I struggled with making a birthday rice pudding for Mother, who is coming out tomorrow for lunch or dinner, depending on the weather.  The temp is back down in the mid 50F’s after hitting mid 70F’s earlier.  The breeze died as the sun set, the barometer is sitting at 29.84” and rising, and visibility starting to clear up.

17 June 2011 Mooring Detail

Many people turn away from Seguin when they realize, on approach, we do not have a float available, nor do we allow anchoring.  Up until this morning we had only one mooring to offer, and it was a Coast Guard owned one at that.  Normally the Friends of Seguin provide five moorings in addition to the two owned by the USCG; we put winter markers on them, which makes recovering them in the spring a relatively simple evolution.  This year only one marker survived the winter, which is why this morning found me on Dad’s boat, the Lovely Linda, at 0730, fishing for moorings with a grappling hook.  

Now the reason we don’t allow anchoring is to preclude anybody from getting hooked on the submarine electric cable that powers the light & foghorn, and yes, here are two men who should know better, intentionally dragging a multi-pronged tool across the bottom.  All I can say is, we more or less knew where the cable ran, we had a tripping line rigged on the hook in case, and the light is still on.  Don’t try this at home kids, we’re trained amateurs.

We only located and rigged one inshore mooring on the east side of the cove.  Then we turned our attention to the one marker that survived, to rig it with a real mooring ball.  I am no longer surprised by the junk that gets tangled up by wave action, but Dad & I were both confounded by the four lobster pots & three buoys we found tangled into our one poor little mooring pennant.  It took us about forty five minutes and all of the salty language we’ve picked up in our travels, but eventually the traps were all free and we had another mooring ready for use, bringing the total up to three.

After we wrapped up the mooring games, Dad went back to Popham to get Mother, and we had a late lunch on Seguin.  Barbequed steak tips, grilled potato salad, and cold beer was the order of the day.  I also made rice pudding with blueberry sauce for Mother’s birthday.  Not traditional, but easier than making a cake, and a good Seguin compromise I thought.  I was able to do the grilling outside but we ate inside as the day, still sunny, was growing chill with a freshening S’ly breeze.  They left around 1700, escaping just as the first squall of the afternoon rolled through.

After my folks left we showered, and I promptly feel asleep for a long nap.  I woke up feeling stiff and not refreshed, indeed I am typing this with my eyes at half mast, and fading fast.  The rack monster is calling my name, so I’m off to bed with a moderate SE’ly breeze, cloudy skies with a few showers, barometer holding steady at 29.89”, and the temp in the high 50F’s.

18 June 2011 Game Day

Contrary to popular belief the foghorn does not keep you awake.  In fact it has a soothing effect much like the gentle rolling of a ship at sea; perhaps this is why on foggy mornings I have a hard time getting out of bed.  Thus we went from two productive days, to a less productive day.

The fog lasted for the majority of the morning, and thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon, with the only window of sunshine too brief to dry anything out.  Since the weather was not being cooperative for continuing my porch project we had to find other stuff to fill our time with.  I made bread dough & baked it so we have bread for the next week or so.  A fringe benefit to baking my own bread out here is on the damp days, the oven warms the galley up nicely.  Later in the summer when the temperature is in the 80F’s it may not be so nice, but for now I’ll take what I can get.

While the dough was rising, then baking, Amy & I played two games of cribbage, and one game of Scrabble.  We split the games of cribbage one & one, and I won the Scrabble game.  After baking was complete I went to the Whistle House to begin working on my boat; I purchased a rowing/ sailing dory in “fixer-upper” condition prior to coming to the island.  While the dory itself is still at my folk’s house I have started stripping pieces off and bringing them to the island for restoration work.  The below picture are two of the seats and the cap piece for the centerboard box, after I sanded them down.  Hopefully by mid July I will be sailing out to greet visitors as they enter the cove.

After dinner we played one more game of Scrabble, which also went my way, before Amy headed off to bed.  I stayed up for a while to practice mandolin; up until recently I have been self-taught, and mostly practiced picking.  While the initial efforts on songs are rough Amy tends to like my playing once the tune is actually discernable.  Now that I am taking lessons, and practicing strumming chords, she is thinking of banishing me from the house completely.  Hence the practicing after she has gone to bed.  After my session was ended I made a final round locking up for the night and noted the lightening show was rolling back in on a gentle ESE’ly breeze.  Otherwise visibility was fair, the barometer was holding steady at 29.75”, and the temp was in the high 50F’s. 

19 June 2011 Father’s Day

To all of the fathers reading this, happy Father’s Day!  Amy & I made a special trip down to the Boathouse to call them (oddly enough, our best cell reception is in the Boathouse, not from the tower).  While we had to call our fathers, the island did not lack fathers today.  It proved to be fortuitous that we got two additional moorings in, as taking advantage of the sunny & calm weather, three boats with a total of nineteen people all showed up at the same time!  The prize-winning group was the three generations of the Perkins clan who came out to celebrate Father’s Day and the senior Perkins’ 61^st wedding anniversary.  Big congratulations to them.

Although the visitors descended on us for about two hours, we had the island completely to ourselves before they came and after they left.  We spent the morning re-staining the front museum porch, now complete, and then I tackled mowing the middle of the main trail and the south trail.  Frankenmower worked like a champ on the rocky, hilly, portions, until I ran it over a large rock, and bent the blade up through the mower deck.  I am not convinced that he is completely dead yet.  I have another blade I can try to install, so provided I didn’t bend the drive shaft, which I may have, Frankenmower will ride again.

The evening was laid back as usual: a dinner of leftovers, a game of cribbage, and lounging reading books.  Amy just polished off Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, while I am making my third effort at Hero With A Thousand Faces…this time I hope to actually finish it.  We went to bed with a moderate NW’ly breeze blowing, barometer holding steady at 29.83”, temp in the mid 60F’s, and clear visibility.         

20 June 2011 Multi-Tasking Failure

In my profession (my straight job, not volunteer lighthouse keeper) it helps to develop an ability to split your attention, and do multiple things simultaneously.  Sometimes I do this quite well, and sometimes I only remember that I had chickpeas on the stove, when I go back to the kitchen to refill my coffee, and smell smoke.  The moral of this story is: Amy & I do not get to eat hummus.

While the self-inflicted lack of hummus was a blow to morale, we nevertheless forged ahead with the day.  It was perfect weather this morning, clear & sunny, with a light breeze.  I was surprised to hear the USCG talking on the radio with the USS Oak Hill, an amphibious assault ship I have passed gas to, come ringing across the VHF radio like they were right next door.  As it turns out they were only about five miles off of Seguin and heading towards Boothbay harbor for Windjammer Days. 

After watching Oak Hill steam by, I got the back porch of the museum stained and rolled straight into yard work.  Amy also spent the morning mowing; we heard a rumor that there was going to be a wedding on the island today, so we wanted everything looking neat & trim.  Our efforts were not wasted, as around 1300 Kate & Matt came up the hill, with a justice of the peace and photographer in attendance, and Ethan acting as a witness, and twenty minutes later they were married.  Happily Amy & I had a bottle of bubbly in the fridge that we had been saving with no particular aim in mind; apparently it was for this occasion.  So we all toasted the newlyweds, I took them up in the tower for some photos, and then they were off.  They may have been our only visitors today, but memorable ones.  

I walked down the hill with Kate & Matt & company, saw them off, then spent the rest of the afternoon playing mandolin and sanding pieces of the dory.  Then it was back up the hill to jump in the rain locker and to make pizza with roasted veggies for dinner.  We played a game of cribbage while we ate dinner, then I went down the hill one more time to lock up, while Amy tackled her knitting project, until neither of us could keep our eyes open any longer.  We’re turning early with a cool evening in the high 50’s, light and variable airs, the barometer at 29.85” and rising, and a clear horizon.   

21 June 2011 I’m Ready for My Close Up

I awoke this morning refreshed and excited. Not only was it a beautiful day, but it was also going to be my first rowing lesson.  Some of you may know that my first attempt to row six years ago resulted in a tiny boat carrying my tinier ten-year-old sister out toward open ocean whilst I stripped down to my unmentionables, jumped in the frigid water, and swam back. Tugging the boat of course.  Today I was going to finally learn what I should have known prior to that expedition.  And I was stoked. Stay tuned.

The morning unfolded as any typical morning would.  Nate puttered and I knit (the afghan is coming along quite nicely if anyone is curious).  When the afternoon hit, Nate went down to the bottom to sand his boat. I cleaned up, threw on my bathing suite and promptly followed, extremely excited to tackle the oars (it has now been beaten into me that they are not in fact ‘paddles’. Apparently there’s a difference). When I arrived at the bottom of the hill, there was a boatload of people padding up the beach. Fourteen people to be precise.  The rowing lesson was thus postponed.

A reporter and a photographer from the Times Record were among this group.  They came out to tour the island and write about efforts to locate and potentially unearth historic landmarks on Seguin.  As their visit progressed, it came out that they would like to put together a book of traditional Coastal Maine jobs. You cannot get more traditional or Maine-y than lighthouse keepers. It didn’t take much convincing for Nate and I to agree to become part of their project. The photographer will be using Civil War era equipment to take pictures and Nate and I will sit and look pretty.  I was a little disappointed when they crushed my dreams of wearing Civil War period clothing for this, but alas, you cannot win them all.  And it’s still pretty neat.

Everyone departed at 3:30 pm, and Nate and I promptly jumped into the dinghy.  After some brief instruction, I like to think I got the hang of the process pretty quickly.  After a successful lap, I dropped Nate off at the boathouse to do more sanding, and I continued to row laps around the cove to get in some good practice. I’m not sure what my problem was last time, but rowing does not seem quite so tricky now.  I splash a lot, and Nate says I need to work on my form, but all in all, I was scooting along at a pretty good clip.  Regardless, it’s now apart of my daily exercise routine, and I’m pretty excited about it.

Tomorrow is another day, and I cannot wait to see what it brings!