We Homestead An Island

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The sea, you know, is not called "restless" for nothing. A glass-smooth bay (as we've learned so well!) can churn-sometimes seemingly in seconds-into a windswept chaos of currents and combers. We've also seen that same bay (the one in which our island is located) thaw and then completely refreeze in just hours on a single December day.

In short, when you live as Isolated and as close to the elements as we currently do, you quickly learn to become very self-reliant. You always have your ears tuned to marine weather forecasts on the radio. And your eyes just naturally develop the habit of constantly scanning the horizon for down-home atmospheric clues that you can use ... things like "mackerel sky, not 24 hours dry" or "red in the east, not fit for man nor beast'.

Then too, when a blow does come, it's not enough to simply know about it as soon as possible. You must also have the physical strength, skills, and equipment you'll need to "batten down all hatches" -protect your livestock, garden, cabin, and other possessions -before and during the storm.

For instance: We didn't buy (used, for $100) that two-place kayak I mentioned earlier just because it was a "groovy" boat. Its 16-foot length, built-in flotation chambers, and low center of gravity make the light, canvas skiff one of the safest boats available (a German doctor crossed the wild Atlantic in a craft of this type in 1956). And that's important to us ... especially when we're forced to go out on our bay in higher seas than we might prefer.

Another example: Our second boat?a 12-foot, beamy dory that we purchased from a lobsterman for $75?will carry far more than the kayak and really comes in handy when we want to ferry visitors or stocks of groceries out to our Island. The dory, however, is far less seaworthy in rough water than our two-place boat.

Which means—since sea winds usually pick up around here in the afternoons-that we generally shove off for town and a load of supplies or guests on a calm morning ... and don't plan on returning until late that evening. It also means that we always give our visitors three possible pickup dates ... and then meet them at the mainland wharf on the best weather day of the three, with the warning "be prepared to stay a night or two extra If we have gales". And it further means that we always wear divers' wet suits during cold weather (lifevests, of course, are a must at all times), just in case we're capsized into the frigid water.

Yet another case In point: Winters up here can be especially variable. Continual spring-like thaws throughout 1976's cold season, for instance, kept our bay filled with slushy ice that was too thick to push a boat through ... but too dangerous for even a fox to walk on. We were marooned for three full months, from the first of January until the end of March. Last winter's record cold snap, on the other hand, filled the bay so solidly with pack ice that we could hike back and forth to the mainland for our mail and tobogganloads of supplies any time we wanted.

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