The little cabin with a red roof

I think this is the first moment of silence I’ve had in my beach condo for over a week. Very very nice.

Well its July now. Halfway through another year and one month closer to that special day in October. We are just plugging right along now.

Last week was jam packed looking back now on everything that happened. Emotionally I have been to Pluto and am slowly on the way back. Physically, I made it to Mars and back, and mentally, well I am always above the atmosphere (haha wow that made no sense).

So Monday. Work – destination Jones Island. It’s an island in Swansboro that sits in the middle of the sound, owned and managed by the Division of Coastal Management. We took our first boat adventure as a lab group. So great to be out on the water and a gorgeous day for it! The ride was a short one and then we were tasked with dropping our equipment off all over the island in the places we were working. So MJ and I went parading around pulling wagons with nets and PVC pipes trying not to flip the carts over. Our home for the evening was a little cabin with a kitchen and minimal furniture. Not too bad.

The funny thing about this whole situation is that just a few weeks back I was standing on Christian’s dock looking out over the water and noticed a little island in front of their house. Sitting on the island was a little house with a red roof. I asked if anyone lived there and he said he didn’t know.

Well there I was standing on the porch of the house with the red roof looking back at the dock where I had first seen the Island. The world keeps getting smaller.

We spent the evening doing our usual routine. Michael and I set up the fyke net poles and then seine each site. This time we were working with 6 locations (quite a lot of work for 2 people). The wind was also really strong which made it a bit more difficult. Picture me sitting on a bucket with a notebook in my lap, pencil in my right hand, and a scale in my left hand that has a clip on the end with a fish attached to it. Rachel laughed everytime she looked at me. Jane and Rachel were doing sediment work and setting transects. We set the fyke nets around midnight and then went to sleep (sleeping bags, wooden floors, and circles of bugspray to keep the roaches out).5:45 am wake up and pull the nets in, ID, weigh, measure the fish. Michael and I did it all. I learned today that I am truly a morning person compared to most people.

The only thing I was thinking about all day was a friend that I was going to be meeting with later that evening. Time moved incredibly slow and of course, things started to go wrong. I figured inevitably I would get stuck on the island. First our boat was beached because the tide went out more than we anticipated. Thankfully, another boat came to the island and helped us get unstuck. Then, the engine kept cutting out right when we pulled into the channel. Miraculously it decided to work. Then, we realized none of us had ever put a boat on a trailer before so it took us awhile to figure out how to get it off the ramp. Then, we had to clean up all of the fyke nets which is like wrestling with a live animal.

12:30 tired from 2 hours of sleep, lots of work, and anxiety about the day – back to the condo

And then I put myself in a situation that I will never ever forget. I spent the rest of the week in a trance.