Thursday, August 10, 2017 – OMG, where did all these people come from?
Today started out like a normal day, did a little sea glass hunting at low tide at 7:30a, sat down and did a little knitting with my coffee and tried to get a game plan together for the chores to be done. Today we needed to get the plateau cut with the push mower, weed whack the rest of the Cove Trail, cut under the trestles, and harvest the garden. Seemed like a doable list and we would be ready for around 10 when the first guests slowly start to arrive, oh, well, best laid plans.
We finished breakfast and the dishes and I heard a water sound coming from the basement. Once I checked with Brian that he had not turned on the well, both of us went down stairs to a mess. We first thought the basement was full of smoke, but it turned out to be steam because the hot water pipe to the kitchen sink let go. This is our 4th water mess and we now have a good routine to stop the water, I run to the circuit panel and shut off the water pump, Brian goes in and shuts off the water feed to the pump and then we find the flashlights and go into the dark side to figure out what happened this time. It appears where one of the year’s past fixes let go after using the hot water in the kitchen for dishes, it was hot enough to soften the hose and it slipped off the pipe. Crisis diverted, pipes successfully repaired and off I went to start the well pump to fill the cistern up again. Something we have learned living on the island, if you here an out of place noise, there is a problem and investigate.
Brian headed down to the cove and I started cutting the grass around the cottage with the push mower. Brian radioed up to me we had guests already, we knew there were 4 boats in the cove for the overnight, we had met them yesterday afternoon when we returned from the mainland, but the early guests were on a new boat. I greeted this group when they came up and they were frequent visitors and had only planned to have a late breakfast up here, back to grass cutting for me. Brian arrived back up top letting me know the weed whacker wouldn’t start (a new chore for Friday) and he would shower and get ready for the rest of the day.
The first big group to arrive were on a unique boat, a Bantry Bay Gig. This is a 38’ rowing boat with all hands rowing, the group rowed over from the Kennebec, about a 5 ½ mile row so they could have lunch on Seguin. The group of rowers are training for the Atlantic Challenge, an international competition between the US and Canada. We easily got everyone to the top of the tower and directed some to the trails before they settled down for lunch. As this group was mulling around on the grass, a family of 15 from Small Point arrived, now we were running out of space for people to eat and it wasn’t even 11am.
We knew Ethan was bringing a large group out on the ferry for 11:30 but the last family to arrive let me know the Small Point Summer School was arriving shortly also! Ok, so the 48-hour notice of large groups arriving really is a very loose rule for everyone but it put Brian and I in a little overwhelmed spot. We needed to make sure over 60 guests made it to the top of the tower, 6 at a time and make sure we were available to answer questions and oversee the gift shop. It was craziness for about 3 hours but we did it. The weather was perfect for people to picnic and walk the trails, and I think everyone left happy.
The day continued with many small boat’s visiting and we finally stopped at 5:30 to get dinner going. Two more guests arrived up the hill during our dinner but they wanted to watch the sunset and would come back up in the morning for the lighthouse, turns out they heard about Seguin from Facebook and my posts in Women Who Sail and Destination Maine and they wanted to see the island’s beauty for themselves.
All I know is by 8pm, I was exhausted. We also know a group from the Maine Maritime Museum will be arriving tomorrow and who knows what other fun we have waiting for us!
Guests today – 110
Guests total – 1374
USCG – 6
