Day 20

Whoo! Day 20 on Monhegan Island -- what a milestone! I'm sitting in Alex's room right now with Amelia, Alex, and Jess. There's some tattooing happening next door in Jorgie's room. This morning, I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and decided to eat it on the Yew porch before going up to the museum. It was pretty hot today, and I did my work in the nice cool gallery. Nobody today was interested in a Wildlands Walk, but it made sense because of the heat. I worked on another scavenger hunt for the keeper's house, and I realized I'm a little sad that I don't get to actually do all the scavenger hunts that I'm creating.

I left work 30 minutes early today because I finished my work. Woop woop! I walked back to the Yew and shortly ran into Alex. We decided to go meet everyone at Swim Beach, where we sat on top of a big rock and sunbathed. We saw Tom (the island fellow) rowing out into the harbor in a little skiff. We cheered him on and he nonchalantly asked if we'd like to go for a sail. I screamed "YES!!" (in my head) and looked over at people to express my excitement. 

The first day I got here, I asked jess if she knew who owned the sailboats in the harbor. She said 'Tom' and I just assumed that was some man that I would never meet and there's no way I would ever get on his boat. But I did! Today!

FELLOW:

  • Tom is a 20-something year old guy who lives on Monhegan and just makes sure the island is running smoothly. I'm not entirely sure what the rest of his job is, but I know a lot of the islands in coastal Maine have fellows that rotate out every year or two.
Anyway, Tom went to fetch his boat from down near Deadman's cove while we gathered out stuff from the rock and went down to the beach to get ready to row out. Tom got us in the skiff and we rowed out to the boat. She is a gorgeous 32' ketch called Little Dipper. Here's a photo:


I guess I didn't take a good photo of her from afar, but you get the idea. I told Tom that I used to sail for Bowdoin, and he asked me to help him rig. I've not sailed a boat this big before, but I feel like I learned a lot. I took the ties off the sails and helped hoist them and unfurl the jib. Being a ketch, this boat has two masts, the aft one known as the 'mizzen' mast. We motored a little bit and then sailed out of the harbor! Tom was nice enough to let me skipper most of the time, which was really sweet. 

Here's Alex, Jess, and I on the deck before we took off:

We sailed around to the inland side of Manana, then turned around and came back into the harbor. The wind was pretty light, and we never sailed faster than 4 knots, but it was still an awesome experience. We derigged and cleaned up and Alex rowed us back in. What an awesome way to spend the evening! But... that's not it!

I ran back to the Yew to take a quick shower and grabbed some leftovers then headed over to the church for the biweekly Jamboree! There were lots of awesome acts, including a little dog named Bibi Moon who did a few tricks, including the famous 'paw', 'roll-over' and 'stand'. One kid did some magic tricks and he called ME up to participate. I didn't fully understand the trick, but apparently I was a mind-reader, so that's going on my LinkedIn now. We went back to the Yew and chilled in Jorgie's room to some great tunes. A super day! 

Alex has just finished making a poster for a party this Friday's party, which I'll reveal the theme of on Friday. It's getting late now, so I'd better head to bed. I still feel like I'm on the ocean :)

Shoutout to my bestie sailors Liv and Jessie, I hope Hindu and Bloodhound are doing great! I'm sure they are with you two as crew. 

Love, Me

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