Eye On The East: Off-Water Partners

June-July 2006

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Adam Bolonsky

When we shove offshore, we take it as given that we paddle with people who are actually there. But there are others with us besides the ones wearing wetsuits—the ones we’ve left at home.

Our goal is Muskeget, the low sand island held together by Rosa rugosa and beach grass, which clings to the outer edges of Nantucket Sound like a pale medallion. In the brilliance of summer, Muskeget reflects a bright and piercing glare that suggests less landmass than glowing presence.

Less than a mile long and half a mile wide, Muskeget lies twenty-odd miles offshore of Cape Cod, surrounded by vast sandbars and wide, fast-moving currents that keep at bay any but the shallowest-draft boats. The overspread of shallows and shoals are miles wide, and encircle the island like submerged hills. The desolate seclusion is compelling.

It’s a day before the paddle to Muskeget with my buddy Mark. Yvonne and I are at my sister’s.

“I’m pretty worried about the fog,” I say. “The island’s far away, easy to miss, nothing around it but currents.”

“So if the fog comes in?” my sister asks.

“We turn back if we don’t get a visual on the island halfway across, because that’s where we’ll lose our back ranges. We’ve got a GPS, but only to radio our coordinates. The tides run so hard that GPS won’t help. It’ll tell us where we are but it won’t get us across the currents.”

“The fog,” says Yvonne. “I’ve seen how it buries the Sound. Everything disappears.”

“We miss the island, things get difficult. We can’t just turn on the GPS and ‘find’ it. That’s the fun, I guess”

My sister: “So that no one has to worry, why don’t you cellphone when you land —“

“Too far offshore.”

Several years ago I took a solo offshore trip to a barrier island off North Carolina. I was camped in a waterpine copse minding my own business when a furious ranger on an ATV pulled up to tell me that Yvonne, 500 miles away and watching television, had heard about an approaching storm and insisted that the Park Service track me down. It was very unnecessary all around. I knew full well about the storm. It had already made landfall and I was looking forward to hunkering down in my tent.

“We’ll radio the Coast Guard,” I add, remembering that incident. “At least they’ll have us logged. Beats them looking for us when Yvonne does what she usually does, which is call every coastal rescue installation in the western hemisphere the moment she hears that the wind has piped up half a knot.”

So after Mark and I reach Muskeget I climb its highest dune and turn on his radio.

“Sécurité, sécurité. This is sea kayak at Muskeget Island requesting communications assistance.”

Coast Guard Woods Hole picks up my broadcast in an instant.

“Sea Kayak, Coast Guard Group Woods Hole. Switch to channel two-two alpha.”

“Roger that, sea kayak two-two alpha.”

I click up and ask if they’ll phone Yvonne to tell her we’ve arrived safe and sound. They agree to.

“Get it done?” Mark asks when I return to water’s edge.

“Yup.”

“Then let’s do what we came for.”

We rig the fishing gear. The sun drops. We light cigars. An hour later, under the moon, Mark lands what Muskeget is known for: a hungry striped bass nosing around near shore.

I saved that message from the Coast Guard on our answering machine and listen to it every once in a while—if only to remind myself that even if on the ocean I feel free and liberated, responsible only for myself, there are others inland about whom I need to think... primarily Yvonne, the most cautious trip monitor I know, who is prone to making hasty search and rescue calls. Had SAR flown past Muskeget, they would have seen nothing more dramatic than two guys, shrouded in cigar smoke, trying to enjoy the illusion that they were out on a remote island all by themselves.

© Adam Bolonsky is based near Gloucester, Massachusetts.