June 29, 2022
What a wonderful morning! I so needed this. My last post was written while I felt quite low, since I am going through the process of adjusting to a new life without 24/7 motherhood. I have great hopeful days and low difficult days. I know in time I’ll get through it, that I just have to live through the feelings, but my goodness, did today help.
I currently live in the mountains and don’t get to the ocean often, and I hadn’t been on a boat by myself (without kids or other family) in I don’t know how long. Two decades at least. It felt great to meet and talk to the adults, do my own thing completely, explore, run into the other adults while on the island and chat, not have to worry about anyone but myself, etc.
Plus, Thacher Island National Wildlife Refuge – wow! Seagull chicks hatched three weeks ago, and everywhere I walked babies wobbled along the trail. Protective adult seagulls made a racket, and some definitely did not appreciate humans walking on the island. I felt bad sometimes about getting so close to the chicks (the trails can be narrow and it’s hard to not be around a chick unless you stay right by the boat…there are so many chicks everywhere!), but the kind volunteers said it was fine to walk all the trails, just move respectfully and hold a stick above your head so if a gull decides to dive bomb you they aim for the stick and not your head. (!) I did hold a stick above my head, and I was dive bombed once…funny, that was in a rare area where I saw very few baby gulls.
To reach the island, you take a ferry out of Rockport. The ferry books up quickly, so schedule as far ahead as you can. It’s a 15-minute ride to the island and the boat only sits six visitors, so the feel is casual and not touristy. One can also kayak there and camp on the island – see the above link for details.
Once at the island, visitors greet you and tell you about the trails and the buildings. There are two towers/lighthouses, one in the wildlife refuge section and one in the town-owned section. The wildlife refuge area is the northern portion of the island, so that’s where I headed first.
Immediately – as in, five steps from the greeting area — a baby gull stood on the trail and stared at me. Its parent came out and fussed. I turned around and asked the volunteers if they were sure it was okay to walk the trails, and they said yes, that the birds would move, just be respectful. So I went ahead, all the while getting cursed at by the gull….and all the gulls around that pair…they were all over the rocks.
The northern tower is closed to the public, so I just went to the end of the wooden walkway and left the tower itself to the birds and their babies. I made many videos, but this blog has an issue when I try to upload them, so feel free to go to my Instagram (@trishellisusa) for those.
Heading out of the refuge toward the other part of the island, I got dive bombed by one particularly indignant guy/gal. The stick trick worked, thank goodness. This was the one area in which I saw very few chicks, so it was odd I got dive bombed here. The last photo in the below series is after I left the refuge portion.
The south tower and various buildings were open to the public, so I climbed the tower and enjoyed speaking to Ellen, the docent. One could see over the refuge portion of the island, as well as into Boston in one direction and into Maine in the other direction (though I did not get photos of those city/state views).
I had time to walk the other trails on the island before our boat took us back to the mainland.
I loved this day SO MUCH. What a delightful change of scenery. How wonderful it was speaking with people from Rockland and with other visitors from different states. I had a blast walking those trails, seeing those babies, and riding that boat. This visit pulled me out of a damaging funk I had been in for over a week.
I so look forward to the day when I can do this full time. Nature is beautiful. Meeting other people who also love nature is fantastic.
I highly recommend visiting Thacher Island.