May 26, 2017 – Final Preparations for opening day
Today has not been the most hospitable day on the island, we have been experiencing a spring nor’easter with winds gusting to 68 mph and about ¼ inch of rain since this morning. This gave us a chance to make sure the museum, gift shop and lighthouse are all ready to receive guests in the morning. The marine weather forecasts for the island are not the greatest over the holiday weekend but we all know forecasts are a 50/50 gamble, so go ahead and plan a visit to us.
Brian and I walked most of the island this morning to make sure all is safe and sound, the only area that is not ready completely is the North Trail. The rain has left about 10 inches of standing water on the cove side of the North Trail Loop and the rest of the trail still needs to be cut down, but it is passable for an amazing vista of the northern point of the island.
When we did a walkthrough of the museum and gift shop, there were a few leaks that needed to be cleaned up, but the museum is all set and the gift shop’s shelves are stocked and looking great. The lighthouse is looking its best, especially since Ken, one of the Wednesday Warriors, painted the steps to the tower. The only issue at this point is with the power outages through the day, the main light is out but the 2 emergency lights are lit and a call has been placed to the US Coast Guard to help us reset the light.
There will always be more work to be done, and I am keeping a running list as we go around and see a task that needs to be done, slowly through the summer we will make a dent on the list and of course add more to it. As we close out our first week on the island, we hope we can figure out a routine of sorts but right now everything is so new and the weather is not helping us get the outside done. We have also come to the realization that we may not have enough warm clothes when we have multiple days of rain in a row. Everything is wet and it is too damp and cold for the wet clothes to dry, maybe something to consider on Wednesday when we go ashore again.
This evening I will go over the historical data for my tours of the lighthouse, maybe get some knitting done and have a chance read the new Sail Magazine I downloaded on my Kindle. Brian is spending some time getting our Sirius Satellite Radio working in hopes we can listen to our evening news cast. Dinner is still up in the air so no recipe tonight, but fear not, I will have one tomorrow!
