It’s been way to long since I have done any BlogTACO-ing. Man, does spell check not like that word. A few weeks ago I managed to convince 5 unwitting souls to come out the Boston Harbor Islands Park with me. The park service claims there are 11 islands, but ther
e are really 20+ http://www.bostonislands.org/isle_profiles.html Three of them allow camping; Lovell, Grape and Bumpkin. This trip we stayed on Lovell, and for my birthday weekend we were going to do Bumpkin and Grape.
We all managed to meet up for the ferry at a reasonable hour, and get out to the island without too much trouble considering the fact that Steve Li was wearing a snuggie for a period of time prior to out departure. We also met a lovely young gentleman named Bala, who was going to meet some of his friends out on Lovell for the weekend as well.
When we arrived at the island we were greeted by Chris and Kim, the park rangers who seemed very nice and were willing to put up with Ray Tong for the weekend. I had to b
ook this site in February because in the summer of 08 I tried to book a site and the entire island was booked all summer, but due to the approximate 40 days and nights of rain leading up to our trip the only other campers on the island were Bala’s friends, and they were staying in the group site on the complete other side of the island. This meant we had our pick of the three sites on the beach. We chose to use all of them. Once became a seating area, one became a bocce court, and the third became our tent site. After setting up camp, Ray decided to claim a bladder of rum&coke and waste the afternoon drinking in his hammock or making weapons with me.
Please note that no matter what you may think at the time, a big brick tomb-looking-thing, three people and a bladder of wine does not constitute the building blocks for a fountain.
Around dinner time a few of Bala’s friends stopped by camp while surveying the island for a game of sardines that was to take place after sunset. After assuring them that we would not let Captain bring any weapons they invited us to play with them, and after a spirited debate we decided they had more booze so we could only win on this deal.
Elise and Jeremy stayed behind, and apparently one of them rolled around on the ground acting like a puppy of some kind while not speaking a word of English. (remember kids, boxed wine in moderation)
Sardiene’s was awesome. Exploring a fort in the middle of the night while drinking alcohol with very limited lighting, is a terrible idea, but also AWESOME!! Bala’s friends had also met up with Chris and Kim and all of us were enjoying a beverage by the fire on the beach as everyone wandered in. Once the wine was gone, and Cap’s bladder of rum and coke was destroyed, it was time to go back to our home site. Although we had done it in the daylight, walking a half mile, with inebriated friends, along a busted concrete pad on a beach in the middle of the harbor is a lot harder when one of you is practically dead to the world.
Just gimme a minute….
It is also worth noting that when reheating awesome chicken wings (thanks Elise) at 3am it is not nice to save the ones that get all ashy for Seamus because you don’t want to eat them. (thanks Lindsey and Ray)
At sunrise we were mostly all woken up by the wind blowing away our rain tarp and rain pelting the side of the tent. We just started to actually wake up and debate the ferry home, and decided that there was no way in hell we were making the 10AM which was to arrive momentarily, when Kim came wandering down the path in the “light mist” that had accompanied the whole morning and told us that the 10AM ferry would be the only ferry of the day, and it was sitting at the dock now waiting for us and that we had to go. NOW!
The only time I have packed a camp faster than that was when we camped on the Saco and our camp was so infested with Mosquito’s that we couldn’t leave the tent for the whole 12 hours or so we were camped.
Apparently the Ferry service was evacuating the
e are really 20+ http://www.bostonislands.org/isle_profiles.html Three of them allow camping; Lovell, Grape and Bumpkin. This trip we stayed on Lovell, and for my birthday weekend we were going to do Bumpkin and Grape.We all managed to meet up for the ferry at a reasonable hour, and get out to the island without too much trouble considering the fact that Steve Li was wearing a snuggie for a period of time prior to out departure. We also met a lovely young gentleman named Bala, who was going to meet some of his friends out on Lovell for the weekend as well.
When we arrived at the island we were greeted by Chris and Kim, the park rangers who seemed very nice and were willing to put up with Ray Tong for the weekend. I had to b
ook this site in February because in the summer of 08 I tried to book a site and the entire island was booked all summer, but due to the approximate 40 days and nights of rain leading up to our trip the only other campers on the island were Bala’s friends, and they were staying in the group site on the complete other side of the island. This meant we had our pick of the three sites on the beach. We chose to use all of them. Once became a seating area, one became a bocce court, and the third became our tent site. After setting up camp, Ray decided to claim a bladder of rum&coke and waste the afternoon drinking in his hammock or making weapons with me.Please note that no matter what you may think at the time, a big brick tomb-looking-thing, three people and a bladder of wine does not constitute the building blocks for a fountain.
Around dinner time a few of Bala’s friends stopped by camp while surveying the island for a game of sardines that was to take place after sunset. After assuring them that we would not let Captain bring any weapons they invited us to play with them, and after a spirited debate we decided they had more booze so we could only win on this deal.
Elise and Jeremy stayed behind, and apparently one of them rolled around on the ground acting like a puppy of some kind while not speaking a word of English. (remember kids, boxed wine in moderation)
Sardiene’s was awesome. Exploring a fort in the middle of the night while drinking alcohol with very limited lighting, is a terrible idea, but also AWESOME!! Bala’s friends had also met up with Chris and Kim and all of us were enjoying a beverage by the fire on the beach as everyone wandered in. Once the wine was gone, and Cap’s bladder of rum and coke was destroyed, it was time to go back to our home site. Although we had done it in the daylight, walking a half mile, with inebriated friends, along a busted concrete pad on a beach in the middle of the harbor is a lot harder when one of you is practically dead to the world.
Just gimme a minute….
It is also worth noting that when reheating awesome chicken wings (thanks Elise) at 3am it is not nice to save the ones that get all ashy for Seamus because you don’t want to eat them. (thanks Lindsey and Ray)
At sunrise we were mostly all woken up by the wind blowing away our rain tarp and rain pelting the side of the tent. We just started to actually wake up and debate the ferry home, and decided that there was no way in hell we were making the 10AM which was to arrive momentarily, when Kim came wandering down the path in the “light mist” that had accompanied the whole morning and told us that the 10AM ferry would be the only ferry of the day, and it was sitting at the dock now waiting for us and that we had to go. NOW!
The only time I have packed a camp faster than that was when we camped on the Saco and our camp was so infested with Mosquito’s that we couldn’t leave the tent for the whole 12 hours or so we were camped.
Apparently the Ferry service was evacuating the
island at 10AM because the “light mist” was
building and was not supposed to get any better
all day. See graph, showing that wind built to
nearly 40MPH by that afternoon.
Short of some facebook stalking after we got home the trip ended rather uneventfully.
Short of some facebook stalking after we got home the trip ended rather uneventfully.
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