landing we could use. So when we went shopping, Bobby would take my husband and me over to their place, return to the island, and later pick us up at an arranged time. We never left the island unattended for more than a few minutes, ever again.
What landlubbers we were. Our brash eighteen-year-old took charge of navigation. After all, hadn’t he been boating on the lakes up in Ontario one summer. As well as operating the motorboat, he had to row the skiff out to where the boat was moored and bring it in for us. We had a mooring just off the mainland and one in Smith’s Cove at the island. Sometimes as he rowed from shore I wondered where on earth he was going. What with the breeze blowing one way and the pull of the tide another, he wouldn’t seem to be heading anywhere near the mooring.
How I hated those trips to and from the island in that small boat. Up to then, all my sea journeys had been aboard ocean liners. But that little thing bobbed and rocked at the slightest ripple. I would cling to the sides grimly while my son took away in a show-off swing that put the boat way over on its side (my side), expecting at any moment to get an earful of water. Sitting contentedly on the back seat, my husband invariably burst into song, “Ohhhh, a life on the ocean wave, la da de da da da.” … Some life.
Having brought the best equipment he could find for the job of treasure hunting, Robert Senior and his Junior settled down into uninterrupted treasure hunting all the daylight hours, six (or more) days a week. Most nights were spent researching, planning, and just dreaming. For my two men, time could always be filled in some useful fashion. For me, things were different.
The days were endless. After breakfast the men vanished through the woods to work down at Smith’s Cove, leaving me alone to fill in the mornings as best I could. By ten I had nothing to do; I couldn’t whip up a batch of cookies or such — no oven. I had no sewing, no knitting, I didn’t want to read — this I saved for the long evenings. I managed to fill in the time somehow until after the men had been in for lunch. Then began the long, draggy afternoons.
I never had been alone in a place amid acres and acres of space. At first I was afraid to leave the clearing — the surrounding forest frightened me, and the beach had such an air of desolation that it was more than I could bear. But as the days went by I gradually gathered courage and went exploring. Some days I went down to the beach behind our shack and poked among the rocks at low tide. Sometimes I went to see what the men were doing at Smith’s Cove, but I wasn’t especially interested in their doings; I found it rather boring.
By suppertime I’d be back at the shack to wait for my husband and son. Merely to pass the time I would walk around the clearing, look down the pits, walk around the clearing, look down the pits, and then look down the pits and walk around the clearing, just for a little variety.
After living in a bustling city and in the midst of enormous activity, the quiet and solitude of the island was too much. The only sounds to be heard were of a few birds, the rustling of the tall evergreens, and the lapping of the waves. Sometimes I wished the trees would stop rustling, the waves, lapping, then perhaps I could hear something. My ears were attuned to voices, autos, radios — all common noises that are part of living among people. After being in show business all my life with the crowds, music, lights, city noises, this quiet was overwhelming.
As the sun set each day a hush fell over everything. At night I couldn’t sleep, for the silence was like a huge void. I found myself straining my ears, listening. For what? I didn’t know. The drone of planes overhead on their way to and from the Halifax Airport made me feel even more lonely, and when we did have the occasional visitor, strangely, instead of wanting to greet them, I felt an urge to run away and hide.
There would be many days without a soul coming near, and when they did, they were usually armed to the teeth. Deer hunting season was on. I, who had never been at such close range to guns before, felt something close to panic at the sight of these men, casually hefting their deer rifles from side to side as they stood talking to my husband and son.
Such was the state of my nerves that each night, when I finally managed to fall asleep, the slightest sound would bring me alert, fully wide awake. One night a scuffling noise outside woke me up. I glanced up and there, through the window by the door, I could see the outline of a man’s head. I thought of the robbery and of men prowling the island with guns. I was frightened sick. I nudged Bob, but he was dead to the world. The head disappeared and slowly the door started to open. I lay there watching, petrified with fear, trying to think of something clever, but nothing came. Oh, if only we had a gun under the pillow, I thought. Now the door was open.
In a flash of inspiration I decided I might be able to frighten the intruder away. I waited, holding my breath. Then, as he stepped quietly inside, I jabbed Bob hard with my elbow and at the same time screeched at the top of my voice. Startled, Bob grabbed the flashlight we kept by the bed, swung the beam over to the door, and there, leaning against the doorpost, white-faced and shaking, was … Bobby, just returning after having had to answer Nature’s Call.
For days after this little episode, whenever I thought of it I had a fit of the giggles, but my son refused to see the humour of it, grumbling about how he nearly “got shot.”
Towards the middle of November it started to rain. It teemed for three and four days at a stretch for nearly a month. This is when we found out how cramped we were for living space. After putting in a double and single bed, then space for cooking, shelves for food, also the heater, there wasn’t enough room left for us all to be standing at the same time. To make matters worse, my two men tried to work, regardless of the weather. It was quite warm so they didn’t mind getting wet. I managed to dry some of their clothes during the dry spells, but most of the time their things were hung inside the shack near the ceiling to dry. The saturated, dripping ones were hung over where there was a little floor space, and the ones that were just damp hung over the beds. Sometimes the humidity was more than we could stand, so we would leave the door open and the heater on full blast. I got very tired of pawing my way through wet clothes to do my work. And mold invaded all our books and papers.
The coast of Nova Scotia is very rugged. Boulders, large and small, line the coast, with sandy beaches dotted here and there. It was the same on the island, so one either left his boat moored out in deep water or made a skid to drag the boat up beyond high tide. I often worried about our boat being moored out, especially at night when while lying in bed I could clearly hear the wind and waves. But Smith’s Cove is fairly well sheltered from the storms, except when one is blowing from the southeast, off the Atlantic.
A strong wind brought in big rollers at the cove one day. In what seemed only minutes, there was a roaring wind with teeming rain and huge waves pounding on the beach. Before long the mooring started to shift from the pull of the boat and the stern was getting closer to the rocks at the end of our wharf. The men tried to pull the boat in, but the lines were tangled and the boat remained fast to the mooring. The tide was falling and soon the boat would be smacking down hard on the rocks, so there was nothing else to do but to go into the water and cut the lines.
Bob went in, stumbling and slipping over the rocks, he pushed the back end of the boat out then worked his way to the nose and cut the lines. It seemed like hours before he was able to guide the boat around the end of the wharf and heading for shore. Time and time again the boat slammed down onto the water, just missing him by inches. With Bobby in up to his waist, hauling on the painter, and Bob pushing at the rear, they brought the boat close to the shore. The transom was full of water, and the boat grounded. I was assigned the job of bailing it out while they heaved and shoved, inching it out of the water. Every wave that came along helped to bring the boat in a little, at the same time pouring more water into the transom. We yelled instructions to each other, but they were ignored, for none of us could hear above that howling wind. Finally we got the boat out of the water and pushed it up the beach, rolling it along logs. This was backbreaking work and we were all exhausted and looked like drowned rats by the time the boat was safe and secure, high on the beach.
