2017 Life Logs, Days 163: Beautiful Day on Cuttyhunk Island
Date: Monday, June 12, 2017
Weather: Temp Almost 90 degrees, Bright and Sunny
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
Today I went with members of the Falmouth Newcomers Club to visit Cuttyhunk Island. I am exhausted, probably due to the early start and the unexpected hot weather, but it was a beautiful day. Last night when I checked Weather Underground, it said the high on Cuttyhunk would be 63 degrees today. Instead, when I checked Weather Underground tonight, it says the high on Cuttyhunk today was recorded as 90 degrees! It was sunny, hot, and wonderful.
Cuttyhunk is the southern most of the Elizabeth Islands running southwest from Woods Hole. It is about 15 miles from Woods Hole, but there is no ferry from there. So we drove to New Bedford which is to the west of Buzzards Bay and took the ferry from there. There were about 15 retired teachers and 100 students from Old Hammondtown School in Mattapoisett. The Superintendent of Gosnold/Elizabeth Island Schools, Midge Frieswyk, accompanied us. She organized mini-courses for us to attend and a pot luck luncheon with residents of Cuttyhunk. There are only two resident students on Cuttyhunk, Gwen and Carter, who are 6th generation Cuttyhunk residents. Gwen is in 6th grade and Carter in 7th.
It was interesting to hear them talk about their experience as the only students on this outpost island. I attended a geology mini-course where geologist, Dave Twichell,
explained how Cuttyhunk was formed, and then a saltmarsh exploration with Hillary Sullivan, a Woods Hole Research Center research assistant.
Both were great, but the beached and very dead porpoise that I saw going from one course to another was very sad. We had a pot luck lunch in the Town Hall of this sparsely populated island and then had an afternoon Cuttyhunk history course presented by naturalist and very knowledgeable local historian Allie Thurston. I think we all really enjoyed our time with her. We ended our island visit by being treated to ice cream from the local store and then it was back to the ferry for the trip home. The ferry captain went off-course so that we could see the seals lazing on nearby rocky islets. I had never seen seals in the banana (resting) pose, so that was quite a treat
. It really was a great day.
Tomorrow I get back to the family history project in the morning and then I drive to Hyannis in the afternoon to get hitch I recently bought installed on my car. Then I can attach my new bike carrier which will allow me to easily take my new bike to the bike path and distant locations for bike rides. I’m looking forward to daily rides with Ollie next week during our first days of Camp Oma 2017.
