Two Tales From Down East

As a teen I used to go to Martha's Vineyard every summer, spoiled brat, but something about real world responsibility has gotten in the way for the last several years. Until now. Next week I'll be taking Melissa there for her first visit, and our first vacation in a long time. The trip is actually a wedding gift to us from my cousin Rachel, who has lived on the Island for some time now. Her other home is the Island's polar opposite, NYC. I guess about the only thing these two places have in common is that they are surrounded by water.

I am sure the Vineyard has changed in many ways since the last time I was there, around the turn of the century (what a time to be alive), and I wonder what things remain the same. Thinking about the island in anticipation of our trip floats two stories to the surface of my mind. Here they are, unfortunately without photos since those previous trips took place before I had a digital camera, before I had a cell-phone, before I had an awesome wife. Anyway, this is just a taste of the past. Most likely a new blog will come along to tell of whatever trouble we get into next week.


I Should Have Walked

The long lagoon between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs has always been a fine spot for water games. Every summer allowed for many days of great fun motoring up and down the mile long lagoon, where the water was calm and less populated than the rough and busy harbor of Vineyard Haven Sound. Any island kid with either gumption or fortune would do his best to acquire a boat capable of pulling a skier. Such was the case with two of my mates, Marin and Zeke. Marin was well possessed of fortune, while Zeke had labored hard to afford his craft. Marin's boat was a thirty-four foot cabin cruiser which we used as a base station. It was well appointed with comfortable deck accommodations, a galley, a long bowsprit, and every one's favorite, a poop deck. Zeke had the ubiquitous "Boston Whaler," a sixteen foot flat boat with a double V hull and a 50 horse out board Evinrude motor. Perfect for water skiing.

We spent a long day playing in the lagoon waters, seven or eight of us in all. I don't recall exactly who was there, but for sure the group included myself and the two boat owners, as well as my cousin Rachel, and our friends Aaron and Amy.

Around five in the afternoon Zeke had to quit the fun and get back to Oak Bluffs to serve chowdah and lobstah to wealthy tourists. He roared out of the lagoon in his whaler, leaving us in his wake on the cabin cruiser with mild sunburns and salty skin. The tide was ebbing away with the daylight. We motored slowly toward a long dock, planning to unload everyone but Marin and myself, and also to pick up the little wooden rowboat Marin kept there upside down on the sand and well above the high tide line. About fifty feet from the dock I noticed that we were in very shallow water, nearly the same depth as the boat's draft. We were in danger of running aground so we turned back towards Marin's mooring, about 100 yards offshore in the placid lagoon waters. The tide was almost fully out, and we couldn't get near the dock. Time to come up with plan B.

At this point, with no warning whatsoever, Aaron threw himself overboard and swam for shore. His pale white arms shone against the dark water as he swam, clearly visible in the fading light. This kid never took any sun, in spite of all his time shirtless on the beach. We laughed at him, and yelled encouragement. After a few minutes he dragged himself ashore and made his way to the rowboat. He intended to row back out to us in order to ferry our party back to the shore. The rowboat was small, with room for three people and a few items, so we would have to make at least two trips. By this time we had reached the mooring, and in a few minutes we had the big boat securely tied up and shut down for the night.

The wind had been picking up for a while, and now it was steadily blowing across the lagoon. The little rowboat was light with only Aaron aboard. He kept having to adjust his course as a result, and before long his efforts proved too weak against the wind. He quickly drifted off course against his best efforts, loudly bemoaning his situation. I decided that I could and should swim out to him, and with two of us rowing as well as my extra weight in the boat, we would have no trouble getting back to the cruiser. The distance between us and Aaron was growing, however. Now he was becoming harder to see in the twilight, a pale white torso in a pale white boat. I hastily donned a PFD and grabbed a pair of diving flippers. No problem, I thought. Now I float, and I can swim even faster! I dove in, anticipating a hero's welcome from Aaron on the rowboat, and perhaps again at home among friends later that evening.

The water was cold and dark, but that didn't bother me. Sea grass and kelp interfered with my progress a little bit, but that didn't bother me. Aaron had given up rowing at this point, and chose instead to smoke cigarettes and comment on my progress. That bothered me. I splashed a little louder so I couldn't hear his witty remarks, and I wondered how he had managed to keep his cigarettes dry. The big boat was lost in the dark behind me, the shore was indiscernible but for a few distant twinkling lights. From my point of view, eyes at sea level, I felt tiny - engulfed in a vast briny darkness. For a few moments I thought I might just be lost at sea. I fixed my intentions on Aaron and the rowboat and swam with all my heart. Aaron finally stopped smoking and put a little effort into fighting the wind to meet me part way. After what seemed like an hour of swimming, though was more likely only twenty minutes or so, I was almost there. I was getting tired and not looking forward to the effort involved in rowing back to the cruiser, and somewhere during my swim it occurred to me that we might just have easily untied the big boat and motored out to Aaron in only a few minutes. I let that thought sink; it only interfered with my determination. At last I reached the rowboat.

Aaron yelled something useless with the intention of being helpful. I don't remember what he said, but it was probably something like, "Nice flippers!" Because I recall throwing them aboard since they had given me blisters on my Achilles tendons. Exhausted, I prepared to heave myself aboard. I grabbed hold of the gunwales and as I did so my body went from horizontal to vertical in the water. Just as I was about to pull myself into the boat, my feet touched the bottom of the lagoon and I stood up, barely waist deep in the water. Aaron was now just below eye level as he sat in the rowboat. He looked at me and started laughing. I looked back and saw the shadowy shape of the cabin cruiser, about a thousand feet away. A thousand feet that I swam, through only three or four feet of water. I could have walked the entire way. I thought I was saving the day, but clearly I had simply been wasting time. Utterly dejected, I positioned myself at the stern and began walking, pushing the still laughing Aaron and the rowboat back to the cruiser. Just then Marin fired up the engines and came to get us.


The Bounty of My Inter-Net

To this day I do not know why they call it Gay Head. You can do the research on that yourself, but as far as I can tell it is only a name. Gay Head is the Western highland region of Martha's Vineyard. Colorful clay cliffs drop in steep crumbling ripples to the long breaks of the Atlantic Ocean. This has always been a less populated area of the island, somewhat more remote and difficult to get to. Tourists frequent the one small public beach here, but mostly keep to the little shack-shops around the lighthouse at the top of the cliffs. Getting to the beach requires a fair amount of walking, a thing which displeases most tourists. My friends and I knew, however, that a thirty minute walk would give one access to one of the best beaches on the island.

It was to these fine sands that we walked on this particular day. There had been a hurricane a few days prior, far to the south on the Eastern American sea board. Though we had seen none of the familiar elements of such a huge storm, the seas were full of atypically large, beautiful waves. In short order I found myself happily body surfing. For some reason, my friends decided to stay ashore. After a few good runs I felt a strange little pinching sensation from within my bathing suit. I reached in and found a tiny little brine shrimp on my upper thigh. Plucking it off my skin I inadvertently crushed the fragile little mollusk, but satisfied that I had found the source of my discomfort, I swam out to catch another wave.

I surfed in, and in shallow water I again felt the pinching in my shorts. I removed another little brine shrimp. The waves were too good to let this minor irritant persuade me from the water, so I swam out for another wave. This time as I swam, I realized that the water was quite busy with the little shrimp. No wonder they kept getting into my shorts. I decided that I just had to catch a few more waves. On the next run in I distinctly felt the same pinching, but this time it was not only once, and not only on my upper thighs. Finishing the ride I stood in waist deep water. I looked down and saw that the water was not just busy, but literally teeming with the tiny shrimp. Millions of them. A pint of glass drawn from the water would have held a hundred or more, each less than a quarter inch long. Now my shorts sang with the pinching tickle of countless sea monkeys, focused primarily on my nether most regions. That was enough for me.

I ran out of the water and into the tall grass at the base of the clay cliffs. I didn't care if anyone could see me. Pulling down my bathing suit, I looked at my crotch and saw a veritable fisherman's bounty of brine shrimp spill forth from the built in netting of my swim shorts. The little bastards were all over me as well, tiny scales and claws causing tremendous frustration to my most sensitive parts. In a few frantic minutes I managed to remove them all, and after emptying my inter-netting I pulled up my shorts and returned to my curious friends. I simply told them, "I had shrimp in my shorts."

I did not go back in the water.