THREE SEASONS in SANDWICH: Here Comes The Sun

The weather broke just before noon yesterday. The sky turned a crisp, clear blue, and the water transformed from an angry, gray ocean to a calm blue-green bay. The air was warm and -- best of all -- still. October is finally happy, and so are TSO and I.

Blue Sky, Blue Water

In late afternoon, TSO decided to grab a chair and go sit on the beach. I stayed inside, as I had caught a terrible cough when we were in New York and just don't feel very well. (Covid negative so far.) Yet, when I saw TSO take off his jacket and hang it over the back of his chair, I couldn't resist. I grabbed a chair of my own and went down to the beach and joined him.

It was glorious. The sun felt warm and healing. Some people were on the water in their boats. Others were simply walking along the beach. The birds, mostly seagulls, returned as well.

In addition to the partial staircase that I had come across when I went down to the beach the other day, there was now a good bit of flotsam and jetsam that had washed ashore. One item looked very similar to Wilson from the movie Cast Away. There also was a brightly colored buoy not too far from our sand-covered steps. The colors were Ukrainian-flag blue and yellow. My instinct was to keep it, but something told me that doing so was probably illegal. I later learned from the google that, yep, it is illegal. According to one Massachusetts municipality's website, "[t]here is a $500.00 fine for tampering or removing fishing gear. The gear belong to a fisherman and should be retrieved by them regardless of the condition of the lobster pot or buoy." Yeah, right. When was the Ukrainian lobsterman going to come to the United States to claim his lost buoy? Still, like a good girl, I called the Massachusetts Environmental Police Dispatcher to report the buoy. I was hoping the person on the other end of the line would tell me to just keep it, but he didn't. He said that, when one of his guys gets to the Sandwich area, he'll send him over to pick up the buoy.

American Man With Ukrainian Buoy

The seagulls were an interesting lot. A flock of them gathered by the water's edge, not too far from where we were sitting. They weren't eating or searching for food. They appeared to be just hanging out. A very chubby one separated himself from the group, however, and parked himself not too far from us.

A Flock of Seagulls, Minus One

I didn't think much of it until something spooked the birds at the water's edge. Most of them flew away, at which point our seagull got up and waddled down to the abandoned shoreline. I wondered whether he was some kind of outcast.

While we were enjoying the awakening of our beach, we noticed a ship not too far in the distance. TSO, being the curious person he is, grabbed his binoculars and saw that the ship's name was "Empire State." It turns out to be a training vessel that can be tracked on the internet. We watched the Empire State complete some maneuvers. Later, while we were eating dinner, it dropped anchor and settled in for the night. As I write this post, close to 5 a.m. on Friday morning, it's still there.