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Ocean Watch Susan Scott |
Tern Island life
is hard on clothingCartoons about desert islands often show emaciated people wearing tattered clothes while doing something silly beneath a coconut tree. In some ways, that's life on Tern Island.
Three coconut trees still stand here, remnants of an earlier era when the 36-acre island was a U.S. Coast Guard Loran station.
Only one tree, however, grows tall. Brown fronds droop down its trunk, and clumps of yellow coconuts bulge beneath its canopy. Occasionally one crashes to the ground, startling the seabirds nesting in the tree's rotting husks and fallen branches.
Tern Island residents never sit under that tree. Besides not wanting to get conked by a coconut, we're too busy. We do, however, have something in common with that palm. We look as scruffy.
During our work here, we are splattered with guano, dusted with dirt and then smeared with grease and oil. At the end of the day, I feel like a breaded pork chop.
Fortunately, we have hot showers here, but our clothes take a permanent beating, and many get left for the next team. We call these field clothes. At home they're called rags.
As far as being goofy, we are prototype desert islanders. We talk to turtles, hear voices and let wild animals roam the house. But don't send drugs quite yet.
When we find green turtle hatchlings roaming the runway, we carry them to the beach and set them down just above the surf line. While standing there at dawn, waiting for a wave to take the turtles to their destiny, it's hard not to get emotional. Only one in 1,000 will make it to adulthood.
As the ocean sweeps those little creatures into the marine food chain, most of us cheer them on and wish them luck.
Then it's off to work in the bird colonies, where all of us hear voices.
Interestingly, each of us hears only one, unique word: our own name.
On an island where thousands of seabirds are calling chicks, greeting mates and warning neighbors to back off, it's common to think someone is calling.
"Susan!" a voice cries urgently about once a week. But when I whirl around, no one is there except the birds.
The birds get the run of the house because chasing causes them to crash into walls. Leave these visitors alone, and they often find their own way out.
Last week, I wrote for an hour with a black noddy peering down at me from a room divider. When the sun came up, my muse flew out the door. Later, I found my pet plover, Jimmy, in one of the empty bedrooms. When I checked an hour later, he was gone.
We Terners might be typical desert islanders in some ways, but one big difference is clear: We are far from emaciated.
People here may work like dogs, but we eat like pigs. Our refrigerators, freezers and pantry are chock full, and we aren't shy about raiding them. Two major topics of conversation here are, 1) How much weight have you gained? and 2) What's for dinner?
A cartoon for Tern Island might show people in rags talking to themselves, but these nut cases would be well nourished and sitting not beneath a coconut tree, but at a dinner table. A pair of booby birds walking out the door would whisper, "It was nice of them to have us over, but I thought their feeding frenzy would never end."
Enjoy your Thanksgiving. We here at Tern Island certainly will.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Marine science writer Susan Scott can be reached at http://www.susanscott.net.
