Swan Song

Posted on by eddieatwell
One of the mute swans we saw in Saltworks Cove

One of the mute swans we saw in Saltworks Cove

Winter break has arrived, and I’m looking forward to getting out on the water a lot with Dad and Mom, though we’re probably not going till the wind lies down. A gale is blowing today after the snowstorm. Vacation means doing a lot of gear work in the barn. I don’t mind. I do think about not going to Costa Rica, though. I have to laugh when I think of Briggs surfing.

The weekend’s been snowy, and I like that. Yesterday Dad had to go into town to the bank, and he told me I was free for the rest of the day. I was going to take my skiff over to the barrier beach to see what might have washed up in the recent blows. I was walking down the dock when I saw Hallie Ryder rowing right into the cove.

She got up to the dock and let her boat drift.

Hallie (looking up at me): Did you hear about the snowy owl that was spotted over by Saltworks Cove?

Me (wishing I had): No. When was that?

Hallie: A couple of days ago. Want to go look for it?

Me (my heart doing a little dance): Sure. Want to take my skiff?

Hallie: Let’s take my boat. The outboard might scare it.

I climbed in and she rowed us out of the cove, around the point past her place, and toward Saltworks Cove, which is like a little bay with a neck of land that’s all dunes on one side and a huge salt marsh on the other.

We really didn’t talk much, just about the snowflakes chasing each like they were playing a game, and how we were glad to be on vacation, stuff like that. Mostly we listened to the creak of the oars in the oarlocks and the gurgle and splash of the boat’s wake and watched the snowflakes vanish into the green black face of the water. Or at least I did.

We rowed outside the neck of land, scanning the dunes for the owl, and then we went into the cove and rowed around there. We didn’t see the owl, but we did spot two swans, brilliant white against the dark water even in the snow.

Hallie (shipping the oars and watching the swans swim along the edge of the marsh): Mute swans. They mate for life. But they’re supposed to be mean, too. Get too close to them and they come after you and try to peck you. They’re strong enough to break your arm.

Me: They always surprise me. They’re so bright.

Halle: Yeah. They aren’t native to our area. They were brought to Long Island back in the 1800s. They spread from there.

The wavelets kissed the hull of the boat as we drifted and the flakes settled on Hallie’s wool cap and ponytail. The cold air made two red blossoms appear on her cheeks.

Me: Maybe the owl moved somewhere else, like the barrier beach. Want to go out to take a look tomorrow if the weather’s good?

She turned to me and smiled.

Hallie: Sounds good to me. Let’s leave early.

Oh, yeah: I have something I need to tell you. Mom said that she wants me to start spending more time on my schoolwork than on writing about Fog Island. She said I’d served my sentence long ago. My grades haven’t been exactly what you’d call aces, either, so she said school comes first. So I guess this is it. When I told Dad I was writing the last piece, he said it was my “swan song,” which was kind of funny given that Hallie and I had just seen a pair of them.

So goodbye for now, and thanks for reading about my island.

One last thing: Mom and Dad got a letter from Mr. Moodie, the guy who wrote the book about Briggs and me. He said he has a new book coming out called A Sailor’s Valentine and Other Stories. It’s not for kids, but it is about being on the water, so how bad could it be?

Snow Light

Posted on by eddieatwell
Snow in our front door

Snow in our front doorway

School was closed on Friday because of the storm, and we spent the morning getting extra lines on Marie A and filling the kerosene heaters in case we lost power. For the early part of the morning, the sky was lead gray, but not a flake fell. You could see the wind getting up, though: The treetops scissored back and forth and the cove churned with whitecaps.

I was hauling firewood into the mudroom—we don’t usually bring it inside till we’re going to burn it, but Dad wanted a dry supply—when I saw the first flakes come down. That was around ten. They were specks, tiny and light, and by the time I got done with the wood the ground that had been bare was chalky with snow.

The whole afternoon Dad and I worked on gear in the barn, the woodstove cranking away. I watched the snow through the window filling up the woods, and soon the window itself was covered with gray-white snow like feathers. I like the light you only see in a snow storm that’s soft and dusty like a moth’s wings.

Dad (sitting in his old chair, splicing some trawl line—he’s amazing with rope): There’s a poem I’ve always liked by Wallace Stevens that has a couple of lines in it that remind me of today: It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing and it was going to snow.

Me: I like that. The light does look like evening.

The wind was beginning to moan and the light was dimming, especially now that the window was covered with snow. The lights in the barn flickered.

Dad: Listen to that wind. We’ll have thirty-foot waves offshore before you know it. Let’s go up to the house before we lose power.

Between shoveling the front walkway and keeping a path on the dock open and riding with Dad when he plowed the drive, the evening turned to night fast, and the snow was so thick in the air it looked like waving curtains, and the wind went from gale to hurricane force in a couple of gusts.

I didn’t sleep much. I never do in a storm. The gusts kept rocking the house, and making that deep moan and roar, and I kept getting up to look out the window— the peephole of it that was clear of snow, that is—to see if the dock light was still on.

When I got up, snow was still coming down hard, and the world outside was the inside of an igloo.

Mom (drinking coffee at the kitchen table with Dad): Miracles do happen. Never lost the power, even in this blow.

I couldn’t wait to get outside. I suited up, grabbed the shovel, and opened the front door—and found snow piled almost halfway up the height of the doorframe.

Dad (standing beside me): I guess we’ve got out work cut out for us today.

Me: Yeah. It’s snowing, and it’s going to snow.

 

Home Waters

Posted on by eddieatwell
Codfish

Codfish

I’ve been tempted to say yes to go to Costa Rica with Briggs over winter vacation. I brought the subject up with Mom and Dad when we were steaming home after bringing the boat to the town dock so Dad could get a guy to look at the radar, which was acting up again.

We were all standing in the pilothouse, looking out the windows as we idled past the wharfs. Dad was steering. When I mentioned that Briggs’s parents were going to foot the bill, Mom and Dad glanced at each other and both raised their eyebrows.

Mom: That was very generous of them. But if you were to go, we wouldn’t allow someone else to pay your way.

Dad: Not exactly the right time to add another expense. Maybe if the price had gone up more.

I kind of expected that they’d feel that way. Hey—even I felt that way a little bit. To tell you the truth, as much as I wanted to go see what Costa Rica was like—Briggs even mentioned in another note that we could go surfing—I felt torn about taking off on vacation and leaving Mom and Dad to tend to the gear and everything else. I mean, I like doing that work, too.

So when they weren’t too hot on the idea, I was relieved.

Mom: We don’t want to disappoint you and Briggs, but maybe this isn’t the best time. Besides, you’d have to go off-island to get your passport. You know he’s always welcome here, and so maybe he can spend some time on the island over the summer.

I told them that I understood. When I got into bed that night, I started thinking that nothing in the world seemed better to me than heading out in our boat in my home waters. I began to feel lousy for those hook fishermen on the island who were probably going to be put out of business because of the new limits on codfish—right after everyone was saying how much the codfish stocks had bounced back. They were probably either going to have to switch the kind of fish they went after or find another line of work.

I dreamed about that 100-foot wave that guy surfed down off Portugal, and I imagined Marie A trying to steam up the face of the wave, slowing and slowing as the wave got steeper and steeper until she started falling backwards and I jolted awake.

Wow. Maybe the thought of surfing scared me more than I thought it would. I sure would miss giving it a shot with Briggs in Costa Rica. I had to chuckle just thinking about him on a surfboard. Maybe if he came here over the summer, we could try it out on one of the Fog Island beaches.

Ice Boat

Posted on by eddieatwell
Arctic sea smoke off Malabar Island

Arctic sea smoke off Malabar Island

Mom and I got to head out on a trip with Dad, and boy was it a cold one, one of the coldest I’ve ever been on.

When we first shoved off, arctic sea smoke was blowing off the water, and it lasted the whole way out. Sea smoke is steam that forms when the icy polar air like the kind that’s been gripping us interacts with the relatively warmer saltwater of the ocean. Warmer: Right. The water temperature is in the thirties, but the air temperature was about zero.

Even out by Thrumcap, platters of ice had formed in the lee side of the island, and the island looked like it was floating above the wisps of steam. Dad said he hadn’t seen that happen in a couple of winters.

The air was so cold that the spray from the bow plunging through the chop—the wind kicked up to about twenty knots—started freezing on the deck and rails and antennae and hauler and anything else that got wet.

We spent most of the time hauling gear off the northern point of Malabar, and by the time we were done with our last trawl, the ice had built up in cakes on the bow.

Dad (calling to me as I tossed the last buoy back over as we reset the gear): Okay. Grab the bat and go forward to knock some of that ice off.

He slipped the boat out of gear and I took the baseball bat to the foredeck.

Dad (leaning out the hauling door while I started pounding the ice): Careful you don’t hit the boat.

Easy for him to say. I was trying to balance myself on an icy deck and chop the ice without slipping and going into the drink. At least Dad wasn’t steaming full bore to the next set. The boat was only rolling on the swells as she idled, which was enough of a high-wire act for me, anyway.

When I got done, I crawled back to the pilothouse and Mom handed me a big mug of hot chowder. She makes the best clam chowder in the entire universe. You get about fifty quahogs in every spoonful.

Me (holding the mug in both hands while Dad throttled up and we started bucking through the waves): Glad I don’t have to do that every day.

Dad: Me, too. But you did a good job. Worst thing in the world is to let your boat ice up. I’ve heard too many stories of boats going over with even a small amount of icing. But I guess we’re not going have to worry about it next week. Forecast says the arctic air is moving out. We might even have rain by the middle of the week. How’s that sound to you?

I couldn’t answer him. I could only shrug. I was spooning in another mouthful of chowder, and to be honest, I kind of liked the real cold weather. I felt like Shackleton or Peary or Amundesen or Nansen.

But what can you do? The weather is the weather, and it does what it does.

Me (finally able to speak): I don’t know. I like the cold.

Mom (laughing): Don’t you worry. We’ll have plenty more of that.

Ghost Trap

Posted on by eddieatwell
Narwhal

Narwhal

Near zero on day, sixty the next (almost), then snow again, then almost sixty again with forty knot gusts: We’ve had the usual wild swings in weather over the last couple of weeks. But Dad said he thought the January thaw seems to last longer and arrive earlier every year.

Dad: It used to last a day or two. Now we get a week of above-freezing weather every January.

But cold weather made a comeback, and we got one of those arctic snows with flakes so tiny they look like white dust motes.

I took my skiff out after school one day when Dad was still out hauling gear. I was going to go out to the barrier beach but the wind was blowing out of the north, so I sneaked out past Saltworks Cove (and gave a glance at Ryder’s place but didn’t see anyone) to head out to the Cut since it was in the lee.

The ride over was a cold, wet one, and I was glad to beach the skiff and trot over the dune to warm up. I decided to walk along the beach to see what I might find (and to keep my blood pumping—my eyes were even watering in the cold).

You can never tell what you might find on a beach, and that’s why beachcombing is of my favorite things to do—after being on the water, that is.

You find stuff you’re not happy about finding sometimes, too: Dad told me that he found lifejackets with the name of a motoryacht that was lost with all hands washed up on the barrier beach when he was about my age. He’s also found fishing rods, plastic chairs, oars, rope, sheets of plywood and other lumber, floats, anchors, Styrofoam coolers—even a G.I. Joe and a yellow rubber duck. He keeps “the good stuff” in the barn.

Dead ahead I saw a rectangular object in the wave wash, and I thought: That looks just like a treasure chest.

What was I thinking? When I got up to it, I saw that it was a trap, warp, and buoy—and that it was actually one of ours that must have parted in one of the recent blows.

Dad would be happy about that.

Talk about getting warmed up: Once I cleared it of the old bait and weed and crabs, I hauled it back over the dunes, and I was sweating by the time I loaded it aboard the skiff.

Dad was finishing cleaning up the boat when I got in.

Dad: Good thing you found that. A trap can keep fishing and fishing—a ghost trap, just catching lobsters and everything for no good reason.

I told him that I wished it was a treasure chest instead, and he laughed.

Dad: You find all kinds of stuff washed up, stuff you’re not supposed to find, sometimes, too, like the bales of marijuana floating off Thrumcap one year. Some of the other fisherman grabbed them and turned them in. I steered clear of them. Sometimes you’re better off staying out of someone else’s business. Crazy, though, what people will try to make money at. I just read about some guys on the mainland you got caught trafficking in narwhal tusks. Narwhal tusks! That’s like killing unicorns, for crying out loud. They’re actually related to dolphins.

Me: I wish we had narwhals around here. I’d sure like to see one of those things splashing around in the waves.

Dad: If they did, you’d know one thing would be certain. Someone would be trying to separate it from its tusk.

Marooned

Posted on by eddieatwell
Northern lapwing, marooned here by Sandy

Northern lapwing, marooned here by Sandy

I heard about some plover-like birds from Europe that Sandy swept all the way over to our shores.  They were spotted on the mainland in different places, and two were spotted in one of the ponds right here on Fog Island.

I hadn’t had a chance to go look for them, but the other day when I was getting off the bus with Hallie Ryder, I got an idea.

Me (walking up beside her—and yes, my heart started racing faster than an outboard at full throttle): Did you hear about those birds from Europe? The Gazette said they’re still at Hawksnest Pond.

Hallie (shrugging into her backpack): Yeah. I wanted to go see them.

Me (not believing my good luck): Me too.

We walked along toward where her road was. I knew I had to say something—fast.

Me (blurting): Northern lapwings. Want to go see if they’re still there?

Halle (still walking): When?

Me: Tomorrow?

Hallie (giving me a smile): Sure.

Me: I mean if I don’t have to head out with Dad.

Hallie: Sure.

Me: I’m not sure if they’ll still be there, but going out there might be worth it if they are.

Me (to myself): Shut up. You have to know when to shut up.

Hallie: What time? Is early okay?

Me: Yup. Seven, eight?

Hallie: I have to help my father in the morning. Let’s say six-thirty. Daybreak.

Me: Sounds good. We can take my skiff.

Hallie: Rowing over there would be the best. We might spook them with the outboard. But I don’t have the time. So let’s go in the skiff.

I levitated home. I had to wonder if I was the one who really did the inviting. I got lucky, too: Dad said he wanted to let the traps soak an extra day, so we wouldn’t be going until Sunday. I felt guilty about feeling so excited about not going.

I was up at my usual time and I buzzed over to her place in the rain at first light. She was waiting at the end of her dock in her orange oilskins, her hood up but some of her hair curling out from the bill. She had a backpack with her.

Hallie (climbing in):  If it hadn’t warmed up, we’d probably be iced in.

Me (as she sat down in the forward seat): All set?

She nodded and I shoved us away from the dock and throttled up.

Hawksnest Pond was a brackish kettle pond out toward the break on West Fog. We followed the shore since the wind was out of the southeast and the lee of the land kept the waves down. Farther out you could see the chop in the fog and rain.

When we got near the pond, we beached the boat and climbed up over the dune.

Hallie pulled field glasses out of her backpack and scanned the water. The shore was open and grassy on one side. On the other thick scrub came right down to the water, and behind it was a pinewoods with a couple of nests high up. No wonder the place was called what it was.

I looked everywhere on the pond and only saw some buffleheads in the far corner.

Hallie: The ones on the mainland weren’t expected to survive. They eat seeds and the snow covers their food sources.

Me: Can’t they fly back to Europe?

Hallie (lowering her glasses and wiping them off, then raising them again): Their wings are rounded, so they’re not really built for long-distance flying.  They’ll probably be stuck here forever if they survive the winter.

Me: Marooned on a desert island. Do you want to take a closer look?

Hallie: Sure.

We trooped down through the beach grass toward the pond. We circled the whole thing.

Hallie: Maybe we scared them away.

Me: Maybe we should row back out here next time. Like you said. Or look in a different place. They might have moved.

Hallie: Good idea.

We didn’t spot a single lapwing that wet morning.

Not that I cared.

I would be going lapwing hunting again.

With Hallie.

 

Days of Ice

Posted on by eddieatwell
Marie A in ice

Marie A in ice

The temperature sank to two degrees the other night, and zero the next night, and the cove froze right over. That doesn’t happen too often.

Dad and I were out on the boat before I headed off to school. He was warming up the engine and watching the ice through the pilothouse windows in the pure light of daybreak. The pilothouse was toasty because he had the old school bus heater cranking away in the bulkhead. I leaned as close to it as I could.

Dad: That ice has been building up over the last couple of days. But believe it or not, it’s not as tough on the hull as windowpane ice—the real thin stuff. It acts like a thin blade if you hit it right with a wooden hull.

Me: Are you heading out?

Dad: In a bit. We’ll have to put Marie A in the icebreaking business. But I’ve seen much thicker ice in here, so thick I thought we might lose the boat.

Me: When was that?

Dad: Way back before your time, just when Laurie was born. The whole cove froze up and the ice just kept getting thicker and thicker and buckled in plates right against the hull.

Me: What happened?

Dad: Your mother and I had to get out on the ice to chop around the hull to relieve some of the pressure. A sou’easter blew in for a couple of days, though, and that sent the temperature up and moved the ice out. Should have seen it piled on the beach across the cove. Looked like Antarctica around here.

Me: A couple of winters ago I remember the ice lying halfway out to Tern Island.

Dad: That’s right. That was a cold one. But winters sure aren’t as cold as they used to be. I just read a story in the paper about how even ice rinks near the Arctic Circle need to put in refrigeration units because the ice isn’t forming until January when it used to be thick in October.

Me: Was it colder when you were my age?

Dad (nodding): I sure seem to remember longer, colder winters. Now you just hear people whining the minute the temperature dips below freezing for a day—and you’d think the weather forecasters all believe we’re supposed be living in Florida.

I’d touched a nerve: Television forecasters bugged Dad so much he left the room when the weather came on. He said that even though NOAA was more likely to give you a bum steer than not, at least their forecasters didn’t editorialize about conditions.

Dad: The old stories sure made the winters sound colder. One story my old man told me about was one winter that was so cold the whole bay and harbor iced up—and the ice extended right out to Thrumcap and Malabar. This was in the late 1800s. People took wagons out to Malabar to scavenge for driftwood for fires because most of Fog Island had been denuded of burnable wood.

Me: Really? How could they get a wagon over sea ice?

Dad: The stories have it that the cold was so intense even the sea ice was smooth, not jumbled up the way it usually is. But I’m not so sure: You still have swells, and that’s what causes the ice to be so rough. Sometimes these stories get a bit on the tall side.

Me: Still, can you imagine walking out to Malabar?

Dad (chuckling): Sounds like a fool’s errand no matter how cold it got.

Me: Yeah. What would happen if you got halfway out and the ice decided to drift?

Dad shook his head, then checked his watch.

Dad: Speaking of drifting, time’s getting away from us. You better shove off.

I looked out the hauling door window at the snow-covered dock in the dawn light. The sky was ice blue beyond the dark row of firs and a hint of cold pink light touched the sky in the east. A shiver came over me when I thought about stepping back outside.

Me: Okay. Sure wish I could head out with you instead.

Dad (smiling): Soon enough, Eddie. Soon enough.