Things to do on Cuttyhunk Island

• Consider all the things one is not going, will not be doing, could not be doing, and then think of nothing at all
• Collect rocks. The collecting and painting of beach rocks is high art here
• Read about Bartholomew Gosnold’s 1602 voyage across the Atlantic and discovery of Cuttyhunk. When he sailed into Cuttyhunk Gosnold thought he was in Northern Virginia. He was looking for sassafras (they thought it could cure syphilis – wrong). He had a crew of 31 and 20 settlers. They spent 2 weeks on Cuttyhunk and then decided it wasn’t for them. They were met there by courteous and good-looking Indians, described as ‘witty’.
• Jump off the ferry dock and wonder whether we will be bitten by jellyfish. There will be jellyfish, about that there are no ifs. The swimming is still marvelous.
  
• Swim at Church Beach and keep an eye out for jellyfish. They look like this:
• Read. I brought with me: The Man in the Sharkskin Suit by L. Lagnado.; David Plante’s Francouer Trilogy; Munif’s Cities of Salt (a bit of a doorstop). Heidi has at least 2 biographies of Theodore Roosevelt.
• Have breakfast at the Fishing Club - where all breakfasts include cheese, home fries, sausage and clams - and watch a helicopter land on the big H (for helicopter) and learn the entire sordid life story of the fellow being offloaded along with 3 cases of liquor and an anonymous old crone wearing several kerchiefs.