I safely returned from a trip to Long Island where I encountered tailgaters, road rage ( I may have exhibited some myself) a burglar, hockey, shopping, movies and the love of friends and family. Whew. Quite an adventure. Now I am back home where I only need to think about bears and coyotes when I want to soak in the hot tub. Oh yes, since we leave in two weeks, we are dealing with getting things in order here planning for the 300 meals we will make and eat on Deal Island. Right now, setting up some sort of internet is the priority. We have time until we have to actually shop for our food. Then we only have to beware of timid, venomous white lipped snakes and a variety of skinks. But does a snake have lips??

White-lipped snake

Metallic skink

We had to go ashore today to deal with lots of administrative PITA’s. The good news is that we may have sold our boat, bought land behind our house and arranged for new car insurance. We went to a library to print a power of attorney, contracts and insurance ID cards. Normal paperwork always becomes a small nightmare. We don’t have a printer or fax and can’t send mail from the lighthouse. Once again the internet pulls through. We printed all the attachments and headed to a local UPS store, where for exorbitant fees, we got a notary stamp and a few faxes.

We bought extra line for our whaler and tied it securely. We took everything that might get blown off in big winds off the boat. I saw more people today, preparing their boats for the storm, then i have seen all summer. Once again there’s this window of anticipation. it’s still nice out, skies are clear but we are expecting at least a tropical storm, with 65 mph winds. It will be a good test of all the repairs we did after the last nor’easter. We can only hope that the dinghy and whaler are still there when we need them.

At least these houses have been standing since the mid 1800’s. I’ve got movies, books and knitting to complete.

So it’s clear that a gale keeps the local lobsterman home and off the water. It’s strange to see an empty harbor with no boats circling around their pots. We’re used to seeing fisherman from dawn to dark. There was only one motor boat yesterday and today. It had a serious pilot house but I don’t think it was the harbormaster. After hitting some pretty big waves, it turned around and tucked behind an island.

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For the first time all summer, we’ve had to remain indoors. This may be a preview of the weather (this actually may be nicer) we will encounter on Deal Island, Tasmania.

  Our whaler is riding comfortably at its mooring and the dinghy is safely ashore.

Yesterday we thought we saw a coal tanker waiting to enter the harbor but it never did and was gone this morning.

Tim’s working on indoor projects. I’m cooking and knitting for a change. Now we have to see if we can get ashore tomorrow for the Red Sox game and hope it doesn’t get rained out.

How come you get snowed in and rained out? Today we are definitely rained in. The rain is blown sideways, wind gusts are 30 knots and waves are crashing on the rocks and beach. Certainly more excitement than I want to deal with in the rubber dinghy and 16′ boston whaler. So we are not going ashore to sing Elijah tonight and we’ll be home tomorrow as well. We have some indoor projects to tackle as well as some knitting, baking and movies to watch.  The buoy off the north point of the island is dancing

We’re finally in for some bad weather after a mostly glorious summer. I’m glad I caulked the window in the assistant keeper’s house and Tim and I got most of the storm windows up and working, Friday. We drove back from Tanglewood today, went shopping, bought food, wine, water and cat food and had a wet, bouncy boat ride back. I was decked out in poor man’s foul weather gear – a black garbage bag that worked great. But now we are tucked safely inside and well provisioned. Shirley is sleeping on my lap.

I have to prepare for our trip toTasmania, where we have to buy our three months food (and wine) once and have it shipped to the island to meet us. I hope to look at shopping lists of prior caretakers. I’ve been keeping track of how many pounds of flour, sugar, butter, eggs and milk we use. I don’t intend to eat as much meat, but will have plenty of pasta, rice and beans along. There’s a garden there, we’ve stocked up on powdered milk and I have a thermos to use when making yogurt on the stove. We may become the biggest losers!

Luci had to cancel her plans to visit us due to the weather and now I sort of hope it delivers what it promised – but is over in time for Tim and I to go the Red Sox game on Wednesday. We follow the weather daily. The earlier forecast had been for medium winds, then the storm was predicted and, with it, high seas, which is what really keeps us marooned here. We’ll see.