Dog Island

My husband and I, along with a friend, own a little shacky house on Dog Island. For those of you who are not aware that there is an island here in North Florida that goes by the name of "Dog" let me assure you that there is.

It's what we call a barrier island and there is no bridge to it and there is nothing on it except for some houses and I doubt that twenty people live there full-time, although perhaps there are. There are no stores, no bars, no restaurants, no place to buy water, bread, or beer on the island. If you run out of those things when you're there you have either do without or get in your boat and cross the bay and go buy them in Carabelle or Lanark Village. There is a grocery store in Carrabelle and there is Mike's at Lanark. You can get most anything in the grocery store and you can get beer, bread, or water at Mike's as well as gas, bait, smoked mullet and sometimes shrimp.

So when you go to Dog Island, you better take everything with you that you might possibly need and that includes your drinking and cooking water because although there is running water in all the houses, it's water of a particularly evil and sulphurous nature that no one in their right mind would drink. It's interesting to shower in it and we tell ourselves that it's good for our skin.

What you WILL find on Dog Island is nature and plenty of it. Birds galore, from the ospreys that we love to watch soar and dive and then rise up with fishes in their talons which they take to their nests to feed their babies, to the pelicans and sand pipers and fussy blue jays and the beautiful egrets which wade in front of the house in the bay, fishing slowly and patiently as the sun goes down. There are gators in the boat basin and I'm sure there are gators on the island. There are water moccasins (I have seen them) and probably other snakes as well.

There are 'coons but no squirrels.

There are pine trees and scrub oaks and sea oats. There are places on the island that are so skinny that you could spit from bay to Gulf. There are beautiful white beaches and there are the tidal flats of the bay. There are swamps and woods and on a two-hour walk you can experience all of those places.

It's sort of magic and it's incredibly beautiful and it's quiet except for the sounds of water and wind and birds and the occasional chug, chug, chugging of a diesel engine as the shrimpers make their way to and from Carrabelle.

We have no TV on Dog Island, but we do have a phone and we have a radio which I use to feed my NPR habit and there's nothing so fun as playing gin on the porch and drinking beer and listening to Prairie Home Companion on a Saturday night.

We watch the sunsets, the man fishes, I write, we walk. We play scrabble, make crazy-good dinners, and rest a lot.

Our house has a mischievous poltergeist or some such imp which loves to move things around or turn lights on and off. It mostly shows up when I'm there alone but it doesn't bother me and I just take it as another of the charms of Dog Island and find myself fussing at it and saying things like, "Would you please leave my library books alone?"

We've gone there with all the kids and their friends and that's been fun and I've been there alone by myself for a week at a time (and when you are alone on Dog Island, you are ALONE) and I've been there with just my daughter once for a week and even though she was a teenager, she contentedly spent her hours knitting and taking pictures and playing with the dogs and taking long walks with me and at night we listened to CDs of David Sedaris and we laughed so hard we cried.

And sometimes just my husband and I go over for a few days and we're leaving tomorrow, just the two of us, for the weekend.

So I need to get my ass to Publix and buy food and water and charcoal and I'll buy too much. I always do. I tend to worry that we'll run out of coffee or flour and so I always buy those things and then when we get there I open the cabinets to find four giant cans of coffee and five bags of flour but better too much than not enough, right?

We'll haul the stuff over there in the boat and unload it and load up the old Jeep we keep parked by the basin and then drive to the house and unload the Jeep and haul all the stuff up the stairs and put it away and open up the house which has been sitting, patiently and crack a beer and go down to the bay and see how much of our property has been eaten by global warming and the rising of the seas or perhaps just wind and time. We'll set up the canvas chairs on the beach so that when sunset comes we can sit and watch as the sky goes through all of its color changes and the sun makes its final decent into the water and the stars start to come out.
Then we'll go inside and put on some music and he'll grill something and I'll chop up and cook something and we'll meet in the living room and dance a little dance and we'll eat and play scrabble and go to bed.

Rinse and repeat for Saturday.

On Sunday we'll wash the sheets and towels and set the house all back in order and pack up our stuff and load it all up to haul back home. We'll lock the house up and close the shutters and curtains and leave the place to the poltergeist who will be bored without us there and of course the weather will be the most perfect it's been all weekend because that's always the way it is on Dog Island.

Just as you're getting comfortable and have slowed down enough to truly enjoy it, it's time to go.

But it's a comfort, just knowing it's there, waiting for us, good Lord willing, the bay don't rise, and the hurricanes don't wash it away.

I'll report in.