What to do in Cuttyhunk when it is not exactly raining, but overcast and cool, and also when it really is raining

• Learn to Moonwalk. (If I’ve got it right, this is the one where the late Michael Jackson appears to walk on a moving sidewalk. I think.) It turns out that my niece C has mastered this dance and she endeavors to teach H and me. We are diligent students but perhaps not yet ready for prime time.

• Drink champagne while C reads us our horoscopes and exclaim about the extent to which they are wrong and do not describe our salient characteristics in any way. Except when they do.

• Cajole, persuade, hector, coerce, inveigle and wheedle my cousin H into kayaking with me in Cuttyhunk harbor. Of course she enjoys it more than expected. We watch the cormorants on piers, and they ignore us. We admire sea lavender on the opposite shore.

• Go to the shortest Church Fair ever, from 2 PM to 2:30. Do not buy the excellent fax machine perfect for a slow phone system donated by my cousin, but do buy for 50 cents a mystery titled The Sting of the Honeybee. For obvious reasons.

• Think about honeybees on the island. I have heard rumors of a hive somewhere, but I have only seen bumblebees and sweat bees. Every year I come here and think what a lovely spot for honeybees this is – consider the sea lavender - and then I depart.

• This is neither the time nor the place for a
complete history of Cuttyhunk Island but it should be said that there are some who believe Cuttyhunk should bear the honor -and onus -of being the first landfall of the so-called Pilgrims, as Bartholomew Gosnold landed here in 1602 so that Shakespeare would have an island upon which to base Prospero’s island in The Tempest. Sadly, Gosnold's colony here did not last, unless you count the rabbits, and he died of malaria in 1607. Not on Cuttyhunk.