Day 97, 22 Aug

33 Visitors

Dingy Fred used to Ferry Ken and Masonry Workman 

Another overcast cold morning greeted us today. Ken arrived early at about 8:30 am with the brick guys. Kent, one of the masonry craftsmen, brought is wife and two very young daughters along to spend they day on the island.  Emma, Ken’s granddaughter, also returned to finish up her Girl Scout project.  Fred met them with the dingy and brought everyone in from Ken’s powerboat.  The tide was quite high and that along with some waves made getting in a little difficult, especially for the young girls.  But all made it just fine.  After giving Sac her morning walk and a shower I was ready to face the world – HA!

Fred and I managed to have a nice little breakfast together for 2 days in a row! I started to bake some chocolate chip cookies to have on hand for the day.   Fred gave Kent’s wife and daughters a tour of the

Richard Gilmore's Lobster Boat Leaving some Full Crates of Lobsters
in the Cove for Later Pickup

lighthouse.  Ethan’s ferry showed up on time at 11:30 am.  Fred met them as always and greeted the four boatloads of day tourists.  He gave Brook a bag of chocolate chip cookies for he and Ethan.  They always seem to really appreciate when we feed them something.  Once everyone was up I gave two tours right away and then Fred gave some more tours of the lighthouse.  One little boy on Fred’s tour was very antsy and had to leave the tour early with his grandmother.  Actually quite considerate so the other visitors could enjoy their tour more.  Most of the young kids had good questions.  As non-parents, it is amazing the differences among the behavior of kids.  I am sure this is no surprise to parents!  It is always kind of hectic when Ethan’s drops of a boatload since they only have 2 hours to visit the lighthouse and the Island.  It would be better if they had 3 hours. I hosted

Ethan's Boat Carrying Visitors, some being Paddled to Shore in His Dingy

a tour in the tower and then went out on the catwalk. An elegant elderly gentleman with a German accent wanted to take my picture when we got out the door to the catwalk, which I consented to. I gave the tour on the catwalk and right before we entered the door to go back inside the tower the elderly gentleman quickly recited a poem from memory about me taking care of the light and how it was God’s will that I was there to do that. It was an incredible fast reciting and all of the other visitors were spellbound also. I was very touched at his sincere, strange effort and he thanked me again. Another elderly gentleman thanked me for my service and shook my hand in earnest, alluding to my lighthouse service and DOD service. It is so wonderful the incredible unique people that you meet at a magical lighthouse. Kindred souls that temper the never ending work and difficulties.

Twilight Shot of the Lighthouse

Fred saw everyone off from Ethan’s boat and spent some time straightening up the cove.  I called Fred down at the cove and said lunch was ready.  “Great,” he said, “how about bringing it down to the cove for lunch.  Much calmer here.”  The wind had really picked up on top of the island and the waves were getting bigger.  Ethan didn’t think we would have any more visitors and he was right.  So Fred came up and helped me bring lunch down to the cove where we had a nice relaxing lunch.  After lunch, I looked for sea glass (didn’t find much) while Fred snoozed in the sun.  I managed to read another chapter in the Icelandic horse book, which is taking me all summer to read. It’s kind of interesting but also kind of tedious. When the sun went down on the ridge I packed up and walked down the Cove trail pruning away with the shears I remembered to bring. I looked over the gravel on Cove Point beach and found some glass pieces mostly green and a few brown. I did score a nice fat chunk of a light aquamarine color glass which I sensed was down there and that’s why I hiked to the point. I wanted to hike around the cliffs in the late sun but also wanted to start my sketch of my nighttime tower painting. I don’t have much time left here to complete it. So I wandered back up the trail with a few snips and got back to the house. I got Sac’s dinner and a few odds and ends done and waited for Fred to download some nighttime pictures of Beauty that we had taken earlier.  Fred organized and put all the nighttime pictures of the lighthouse together on the IPad for me so I can paint a nighttime picture of the Beauty with her mighty beams of light radiating in all directions in the misty night.  I started to sketch the painting on a black canvas using the various night shots of the lighthouse as guides.  First time ever I sketched on a black canvas, very different from my normal white canvases.  I almost have to think in reverse. I just need to get a basic outline to work from. It is a bit hard and convoluted to work from various pictures but I have done that before with my animal portraits. One needs to make sure the shadows and perspective is reasonably correct. After my sketch was satisfactory I made the chicken, asparagus, cheese, almond, mushroom casserole that we like and had that with a salad for dinner.

While Fred watched Fallon and went to bed, I was so exhausted and fell asleep on the couch. I awoke quite late into the night as usual and crawled into bed with dreams of cryptic poems trying to keep demons at bay.