We are on island. This blog was written a week ago and, through the miracle of robots and the Internet, was cued up to post today. This is our twelfth year as stewards on Smuttynose at the Isles of Shoals and, if this year is like the last nine, we are just now running out of milk, cereal, meat, vegetables and fresh fruit. By tomorrow we will be moving to the canned beans, pasta, tuna, dried fruit, peanut butter and protein bars. We pack pretty close to a week’s worth of food and – with six miles of ocean between us and the nearest storre, we eat pretty much whatever is left. (Continued below with photos)

I don’t expect any surprises. The island hasn’t changed much since the European fisherman arrived 400 years ago. Captain John Smith was here 396 years ago and, except for the two houses on the island, would probably find it much as he left it. That’s not exactly true. Back then the place stunk like a giant rotting fish from the cod being salted and dried for sale in Europe. There were likely fishheads floating in the cove and fish bones littered everywhere. There might have been little huts made of rock or whatever the fisherman brought along to camp under, since there are no trees on the island for wood. Never has been according to Smith’s own account.

MUCH MORE on Smuttynose

We used to think of life on Smuttynose as primitive, but we don’t anymore. We’re used to going without showers for a week, carrying all our water, rinsing dishes in the cove. The current solar composting toilet is miles ahead of the outhouse that we emptied into a plastic tray that got filled with seaweed every few days and hauled to a small dumping site. Now all we leave is a fine gray ash. But it’s still not a place one would linger.

Life very quickly turns into a sunrise to sunset routine of mowing, cleaning, reading, weed-wacking, cooking, cleaning again, and walking the perimiter of the island. This year the archeologists are back and word is that they have already discovered a 4,000 years old Native American artifact.

We don’t get many tourists in June, so there is more time to work on my writing. I get a couple of days from the batteries on my Kindle and my camera. By now they will have burned out. We have a few guests each year, usually the same ones, so they know the pace of island life. I bring out a plastic tub filled with research for my latest book, but I rarely get much done.

We tend to separate the years, not by dates, but by incidents. Here are some that come to mind:  

• the year Gull Cottage got struck by lightning
• the year of the sheep
• the year the gas powered refrigerator arrived
• the year without an outhouse
• the year of the goats
• the year that a low-flying seagull crashed into Maryellen amd knocked her flat
• the year somenody stole the rowboat
• the year the Oceanic Hotel was closed at Star Island
• the year Maryellen jumped into the cove with her cell phone
• the year the parents visited
• the year I scared the neice and nephew with the dummy of ax murderer Louis Wagner made out of a milk bottle jug and hoisted up to their window in the attic at night
• the years we lost Bob Tuttle and Fred McGill

Some of these years may overlap. It’s hard to tell because in all the photos the island looks exactly the same. Only the people change, although I notice that I am still wearing the same clothes.

We’re there right now, so I can’t write anymore. Here are some photos. I’ll bring back new ones, and with any luck, they will look very much the same. – JDR

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Photos by J. Dennis Robinson