Day 77, 2 Aug

16 Visitors 

Young Seagulls Down by the Cove

The day started overcast with a bit of a sprinkle of rain as I raised the flag. It was quiet till late morning when a few private boaters started trickling in.  Fred was gaving tours while I attended the gift shop and museum with visitors. Later I gave a few tours and took some photos for the visitors. At one point all 5 moorings were full and their dinghies lined the cove beach. I did one run to the cove and escorted a father and daughter up for a tour while Fred helped the departing visitors. We saw Ethan out on the east side of the island In the Leeward with a boatload of bikini-clad women and hot pink balloons. Looked like he had a chartered party boat for the afternoon. They did come into the cove and Fred went down to check them out. They didn’t come ashore but kept having a good time in the cove.

Ethan's Leeward Hosting a Ladies Party

We had leftover mac and cheese with meatballs and watermelon for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was nice and quiet and I decided to start painting the sketch I did on my canvas. Fred decided to mow the upper lawn areas and did the area I used for painting first so I could get started.  I set up the plastic table and chair where I sat before for the sketch. I dragged out my paints, portable easel, brushes, palette and other assorted stuff to start painting. It was more overcast and I had denim leggings on and a light hoodie. As I started painting, the mosquitos started gnawing at me right through the leggings and socks. There was no wind to keep them away and they were quite ferocious and making me miserable. This was the first time I have tried to paint plein air and may be the last if the bugs keep up. I did get some Deet and

Cynthia Painting the Lighthouse, She is in Lower Left

sprayed it all over me and it did keep the buggers away. I finally spent 3 hours painting and it was great to paint again after not painting for so long. Fred was mowing the whole time around me.  It was different painting live outside and painting structures. I’m used to doing animal portraits.

At around 7:30 pm a gentleman showed up for a tour and Fred gave him one as I was working on one last section of my painting for the day. We had a nice sunset of the big orange red ball of the sun dipping into the cloudbank to end the day. We had a nice chat with John, our late visitor and he invited us to go on a ride around the island early the next morning on his sailboat. We agreed to meet him on his boat at 8 am for our island tour.

I helped Fred with hand signals to get the cart on the

Closeup of Cynthia Painting

tram down to the other walkway. Fred had moved the sideways sitting cart back on the track and carefully moved it a little at a time till it was securely back on the track. I was there watching to see that all went well and used hand signals to convey that. He did move the cart down the tram to the point where the wooden sidewalk met cement steps up to the house. We will leave the cart there instead of leaving it at the top where the rail is damaged.

We got a radio check from our new friend in his boat in the cove. Back to the house we went and I got dinner for Sac, cleaned my brushes and decided to do some ballet since it was way overdue. I did my 1.5-hour workout and my feet were hurting from disuse and from the too soft point shoes, they were beginning to wear out. So I got through my ballet class and started grilling some onions for our cheeseburger dinners. Fred had done a salad and cooked the burgers while I ate my salad. We watched the news and then a bit of knitting before we were to tired to stay up any longer. Sweet dreams of a magic sailboat ride around a mystical island and it’s beautiful but lonely sentinel keeping watching on us far upon it’s tall hill.