part deux

Off the boat and on to finding out what had happened to my bags and where I would be sleeping. In a dorm (I was hoping for more private and modern quarters), but oh well. Hm, just one toilet in the dorm, and at the opposite end of the hall. I pee a lot during the night. No biggie, I thought anyway. It’s just one night.

I sat in on a marine mammal class where JB told us really bizarre things about certain kinds of whales (Mother Nature is weird), but after that, there wasn’t anything specific to join. At one point my social anxiety almost got the best of me; I’d spotted Willy and hoped to set up a time to talk, but he was wrangling with his son and kept saying, “We’ll be in touch through e-mail.” Since this was only like 5 p.m. and I was there till 2 the next day, I felt a little abandoned. Finally I forced myself to sit down with some people in the dining hall. They were completely welcoming. This is what they do there, after all: new people come, all there because they love the sea and the things that live in and above it. They all meet and gather for the time they’re there. Everyone’s a stranger and a new acquaintance. Corny, maybe, but it’s true.

And there was rum. JB, the second director of the island, had brought rum along. (Rogue is rolling around in the sun, BTW. Inside still.) There were also lobsters for dinner, which I didn’t have and which smelled just horrid. Like death, really. I had barely eaten all day, believe it or not, so salad and corn and egg rolls were fine with me (there were vegetarian dishes, but both had soy).

John and I met up to take pictures of the sunset (rather, the pink sky above it, since it set behind clouds), but I bailed before it was totally done cos I was just exhausted.

Walking back to the dorm, though, I realized I would never have a night like this again, so I went and sat on a porch in the night, looking toward mainland. In the building behind me someone was teaching kids to sing sea chanties. Brilliant.

(different porch)

Here I have to applaud my bladder on this trip: first, holding on while on the boat, then, during the night, I only went twice! Whoo! Yes, you do need to know this! Sometime I may be staying at your house, and you’ll know to put me near the bathroom. Also meriting applause is my head, for fending off pain even while in the sun for 4 hours (the wind helped).

Sunday morning I went down to see the birds being banded. They catch them in this wall of net set up between tall bushes; boys—just boys!—there for family programs would get them out of the net, put them in a paper bag,



and take them back to David, who gives private piano and flute lessons when he’s not at Shoals. That was so cool. I can’t believe people can handle those tiny teeny things like that.



Then on to brunch; this time I just sat down at a table by myself and waited, and it filled up around me. Good food, too, esp. the cod cakes. After brunch I talked with Willy for a while after all, on tape (so to speak), then wandered a bit before getting ready to depart. It was really pretty easy to get people talking about themselves, I have to say.

When I got back to Creek Farm, around 4 p.m., I knew I couldn’t stay another night there. Just something about it I don’t know if I’ve been able to explain properly. It felt weird knowing there were people around but not being connected to them. (There was someone upstairs from me, too.) And something about being given this space for myself but it not really feeling like mine. And I hadn’t slept well Friday night, though I slept like a log in the dorm. And I didn't like the bathroom. So, I went off and found the Hilton Garden Inn I’d spotted while out with Pam and got myself a king-size bed there. (Granted, the memory foam of the mattress made me all sweaty during the night and I had to remake the bed at 4 a.m. so I could sleep on top of the comforter, but that was OK. I slept really well otherwise.) I was so happy to have that brand-new bathroom to shower in. I was coated in sunscreen and OFF! and hadn’t showered in my 24 hours on the island, upon the advice of a teenager who kept calling the Shoals showers two-minute Navy showers. I went out for dinner and shopped some; shopped some more the next morning. ITHACA, YOU CAN LEARN A LOT FROM PORTSMOUTH.