Thursday, August 3, 2017
This morning started out slow for whatever reason, there were no visitors until 11:30am when Ethan’s ferry arrived. The quiet morning gave Brian and I a chance to do a few things around the cottage. I had a chance to walk the North Trail to berry pick, the blackberries are just starting to ripen, finally but the raspberries are still going strong. I also found one wild blueberry bush along the trail and I am keeping the location my little secret for the time being while I get my fill of blueberries. It is the only blueberry bush I have found on the island.
I posted in the blog earlier this week about how we were watering the garden by the watering can, well, Cyndy from Fosils called to say there was a water spigot and hose in the basement, ok, that is great news and still not sure how we didn’t know about it! But Brian the engineer, needed to upgrade the system for me to make it easier to get to and use. He spent most of his morning in the workshop making the perfect system. He has a few more tweeks to make to it and I will reveal the system tomorrow but it certainly makes watering the veggies much easier. We need to remember to run the well pump daily now to keep up with the extra water usage.
I made sure I was at the beach with the keys to the van at 11:30 to meet Brooke and Ethan in hopes we will get the missing groceries before I run out of coffee on Saturday. The Leeward arrived right on time and started to bring guests to shore and the key handoff was successful. I had a chance to welcome the first few guests on the beach and gave them a few suggestions on how to make their visit to Seguin a successful one and off to the plateau I went to get ready for the lighthouse tours.
The morning progressed with a mix of sun and fog, not the most spectacular of views when you at the top of the tower but more realistic to everyday life on Seguin. We also had a visit from a private boat arriving from the Atkins Bay area and the young man on the boat showed me pictures he took of a whale off Fort Popham this morning, it looked like a Pilot Whale. He also taught me what an Ocean Sunfish is because we had 2 of them swimming off the west side of the island. My pictures don’t do this ugly, prehistoric looking fish justice but another piece of information I have gathered from the waters of Maine. If you first look at the sunfish, it sort of looks like a plastic bag floating in the water until it flips its fin out of the water. I am going to post an image from on line to show how truly ugly this fish is. It was also explained to me it is a non-eating fish because it is so bony.
One of our memorable guests for the day is the daughter of the late Barbara Paiement, an original board member of FOSILS from 1986 and was given the honor of being a First Order Volunteer of the organization. She served the organization from 1986-2013 and is honored with a plaque in the gift shop. Barbara was also present at the signing of the original lease of the island to FOSILS in April of 1989 in her capacity as treasurer. Her daughter was excited to see her mom’s recognition.
The day continued to become a busy one with numerous tours and visitors arriving up the hill. As the afternoon was winding down, I received a text from Ethan letting me know he would be in the cove in 15 minutes with our groceries. Stop everything, our provisions are coming and the coffee shortage will be under control again! I went down the hill and dragged the dinghy down to the water while Brian finished up the last tour. I pushed out into the cove once Brian was in sight and I rowed out past the USCG buoy awaiting Ethan’s arrival. He had an afternoon fishing charter and wanted to make sure I got my groceries because tomorrow’s weather may not allow him to bring a group out to us. The hand off was successful and I can keep my caffeine addiction for another week. No one wants to experience me without a morning jolt of coffee.
Finally, the island was free of guests and we had a chance to sit and relax on the front porch and check our on-line accounts. Today we only had internet on the museum side of the front porch, another game of find the internet! Sam the Seagull decided to join us as well. He likes the quiet time too on the island but I also think he likes cleaning up left over crumbs after the guests finish the picnics, he has competition with Pickles who also has figured out where the best snacks can be found after everyone leaves.
Guests today – 37
Guests total – 1114
USCG – 6
