The Haunted Lagoon
(a 1959 book by Carolyn Keene; author of the Nancy Drew books)
An Exploration of Writing and Barrier Islands: or Let Me Shred That for You
I'd heard of this book, and was curious, since it is a kids' book (my favorite genre) and set on a couple of islands which are my favorite places on land or sea. On page one I saw that I needed to say something about it.
I needed to say a lot about it.
The time period (1959) makes it an interesting, and maddening, contrast with modern kids books. The style also contrasts terribly with our modern "cinematic" sense of storytelling, powered by movies, TV and video games. The author knows something about boats, nothing about horses, and some about the islands. Researching a story for a specific setting is always tricky; no matter what you do, there will always be something you didn't get right. It's an interesting look at another age, another kind of storytelling, and an outsider's view of the islands.
And no, we still haven't actually found Captain Wilson's treasure.
I needed to say a lot about it.
The time period (1959) makes it an interesting, and maddening, contrast with modern kids books. The style also contrasts terribly with our modern "cinematic" sense of storytelling, powered by movies, TV and video games. The author knows something about boats, nothing about horses, and some about the islands. Researching a story for a specific setting is always tricky; no matter what you do, there will always be something you didn't get right. It's an interesting look at another age, another kind of storytelling, and an outsider's view of the islands.
And no, we still haven't actually found Captain Wilson's treasure.
I've paddled and camped in the Haunted Lagoon.
At least, I think my campsite, reached after a long paddle by kayak, is The Haunted Lagoon. It lies slightly north and Marylandish of the MD/VA border. It has a crumbling building (once a fish processing plant or something), a more crumbling dock, and, inexplicably, one telephone pole. It's definitely creepy. Ponies from the Maryland side frequent it. I put up the tent in the midst of "stallion piles", calling cards from the local herdmasters who deposit their poop in communal piles to say "George was here" and "Fred dares you to steal his mares". Fortunately the piles dry and lose any stink quickly in the sun.
I've backpacked the back country with its dozens of bloodsucking flies, mosquitoes and three kinds of ticks. I rode (briefly) in the Other Great Chincoteague Wild Pony Roundup, Halloween weekend, when the Fire Company rounds up the ponies they graze on the big island for winter maintenance. A friend and I stumbled into some cowboys and they offered us a couple of horses, amused by the tourists no doubt... mine was a prancy black who turned out to have the highly appropriate name of Zorro.
I saw Misty the last year she was alive (1972) but didn't take a picture because she was snoozing in her stall. I have attended Pony Penning multiple times. I never got a Chincoteague pony, but I grew up on horses and have trained a few, including a few mustangs. My own wild black mare ran wild for eight years before they rounded her up. She came from the Malheur area of southeastern Oregon... just east of there is one of the last bastions of Spanish Mustangs, the same stock that first populated Assateague, and can still be seen on the Outer Banks.
I met my first Siberian huskies on Chincoteague of all places. A friend's family owned houses there, and we stayed for free. I admired the dogs, heard Heather Hanna's husky speech (get a Golden, it's easier). Then a Siberian husky got my goat. The goat was fine, the dog needed a new home, and ...
...I've had about a dozen of them over the last few decades, mushing them on wheels or sled in cold weather, all the fault of a barrier island in summer.
I scuba dived in the shallows off the north west side of Chincoteague (eelgrass beds full of weird things) and in Tom's Cove (visibility to the end of your arm). I jumped off a perfectly good floatin' boat north of there (Indian River) to look at a sunken schooner. The steel ship Washingtonian had misjudged the speed and heading of the wooden schooner Elizabeth Palmer and they collided, just like in the beginning of Haunted Lagoon. All that's left of the steel ship is a pile of junk with crustaceans and fish peeking out of its crevices, and starfish and tentacly things (in pretty colors when you turn on your dive light) cluttering its surfaces. The Palmer is a slight ridge in the sand with things growing on it, waving in the sea currents.
I acquired a kayak decades ago and discovered a whole 'nother level of Chincoteague and Assateague; the islands are best seen by boat. I have floated in the midst of a crayola rainbow of kayaks waiting to hear the snap of bullwhips in the Assateague marsh as the saltwater cowboys drive the herd to the channel for the World Famous Pony Swim. I have stood on the beach at the buttcrack of dawn, a week before the swim, waiting for the herds to be driven down from the north, passing in a moment by the crowds huddled close to the waves. I've heard the clop of hooves on back Willow Street as the saltwater cowboys set out at dawn to the Fire Company grounds to release the herd and drive it back to another year of freedom on Assateague.
I've climbed the spiral stair of the lighthouse and stood in the immense heat of the glassed in lightroom at the top (before the rules changed and you could only go as far as the watchroom). And on a long, windy, two day paddle from the north end of the island to the south end, I crossed Tom's Cove in the dark, broadsided by waves, dead tired. I pulled up on a sandy shoal, threw out my anchor and snoozed, slumped over the humpy deck in front of the cockpit. When the kayak began to rock with the rising tide, I drew it up another yard or two onto solid ground.
Then I ran out of solid ground.
I got back in and paddled into the dark, toward a black line of marsh grass and beach where I'd parked the truck... somewhere. If I went too far to the right, south, I'd end up in the open ocean off Wallops Island, where the NASA base is. For me, in a kayak in the dark, even provisioned as it was for a long trip, it would be as far as the moon.
I stayed to port, alone in the dark, bucking little waves that seemed much larger than the two feet or so they actually were.
Off to port the Assateague Light sent out its flashing beacon; blink-blink... blink-blink... blink-blink.
I understand all those Inspirational Posters with lighthouses on them now. The lighthouse is empty, no one can come to your aid, but the reassuring blink-blink is a reference point, an anchor. You know where you are. You know you are not lost at sea.
I know a little bit about Assateague and Chincoteague. I heard about it from Marguerite Henry's Misty books, and a chapter in her Album of Horses, beautifully illustrated by Wesley Dennis. I showed that chapter to my dad and he said something like "We should go there."
"What? It's like a real place?"
We went when I was in high school, the last year Misty was alive. I was blown away. I returned, with tent, with backpack, with kayak, and with one horse that truly belonged with an ex-boyfriend, not me.
It is my favorite place on the planet. I'm writing my own stories about it.
So, I picked up the Haunted Lagoon, to see what someone else had written about the place.
The Book:
...has a copyright of 1959. I was four. Misty of Chincoteague was written in 1947. (She was about 26 when she died, not that terribly old for a pony).
I'm taking notes and writing this as I read it.
At least, I think my campsite, reached after a long paddle by kayak, is The Haunted Lagoon. It lies slightly north and Marylandish of the MD/VA border. It has a crumbling building (once a fish processing plant or something), a more crumbling dock, and, inexplicably, one telephone pole. It's definitely creepy. Ponies from the Maryland side frequent it. I put up the tent in the midst of "stallion piles", calling cards from the local herdmasters who deposit their poop in communal piles to say "George was here" and "Fred dares you to steal his mares". Fortunately the piles dry and lose any stink quickly in the sun.
I've backpacked the back country with its dozens of bloodsucking flies, mosquitoes and three kinds of ticks. I rode (briefly) in the Other Great Chincoteague Wild Pony Roundup, Halloween weekend, when the Fire Company rounds up the ponies they graze on the big island for winter maintenance. A friend and I stumbled into some cowboys and they offered us a couple of horses, amused by the tourists no doubt... mine was a prancy black who turned out to have the highly appropriate name of Zorro.
I saw Misty the last year she was alive (1972) but didn't take a picture because she was snoozing in her stall. I have attended Pony Penning multiple times. I never got a Chincoteague pony, but I grew up on horses and have trained a few, including a few mustangs. My own wild black mare ran wild for eight years before they rounded her up. She came from the Malheur area of southeastern Oregon... just east of there is one of the last bastions of Spanish Mustangs, the same stock that first populated Assateague, and can still be seen on the Outer Banks.
I met my first Siberian huskies on Chincoteague of all places. A friend's family owned houses there, and we stayed for free. I admired the dogs, heard Heather Hanna's husky speech (get a Golden, it's easier). Then a Siberian husky got my goat. The goat was fine, the dog needed a new home, and ...
...I've had about a dozen of them over the last few decades, mushing them on wheels or sled in cold weather, all the fault of a barrier island in summer.
I scuba dived in the shallows off the north west side of Chincoteague (eelgrass beds full of weird things) and in Tom's Cove (visibility to the end of your arm). I jumped off a perfectly good floatin' boat north of there (Indian River) to look at a sunken schooner. The steel ship Washingtonian had misjudged the speed and heading of the wooden schooner Elizabeth Palmer and they collided, just like in the beginning of Haunted Lagoon. All that's left of the steel ship is a pile of junk with crustaceans and fish peeking out of its crevices, and starfish and tentacly things (in pretty colors when you turn on your dive light) cluttering its surfaces. The Palmer is a slight ridge in the sand with things growing on it, waving in the sea currents.
I acquired a kayak decades ago and discovered a whole 'nother level of Chincoteague and Assateague; the islands are best seen by boat. I have floated in the midst of a crayola rainbow of kayaks waiting to hear the snap of bullwhips in the Assateague marsh as the saltwater cowboys drive the herd to the channel for the World Famous Pony Swim. I have stood on the beach at the buttcrack of dawn, a week before the swim, waiting for the herds to be driven down from the north, passing in a moment by the crowds huddled close to the waves. I've heard the clop of hooves on back Willow Street as the saltwater cowboys set out at dawn to the Fire Company grounds to release the herd and drive it back to another year of freedom on Assateague.
I've climbed the spiral stair of the lighthouse and stood in the immense heat of the glassed in lightroom at the top (before the rules changed and you could only go as far as the watchroom). And on a long, windy, two day paddle from the north end of the island to the south end, I crossed Tom's Cove in the dark, broadsided by waves, dead tired. I pulled up on a sandy shoal, threw out my anchor and snoozed, slumped over the humpy deck in front of the cockpit. When the kayak began to rock with the rising tide, I drew it up another yard or two onto solid ground.
Then I ran out of solid ground.
I got back in and paddled into the dark, toward a black line of marsh grass and beach where I'd parked the truck... somewhere. If I went too far to the right, south, I'd end up in the open ocean off Wallops Island, where the NASA base is. For me, in a kayak in the dark, even provisioned as it was for a long trip, it would be as far as the moon.
I stayed to port, alone in the dark, bucking little waves that seemed much larger than the two feet or so they actually were.
Off to port the Assateague Light sent out its flashing beacon; blink-blink... blink-blink... blink-blink.
I understand all those Inspirational Posters with lighthouses on them now. The lighthouse is empty, no one can come to your aid, but the reassuring blink-blink is a reference point, an anchor. You know where you are. You know you are not lost at sea.
I know a little bit about Assateague and Chincoteague. I heard about it from Marguerite Henry's Misty books, and a chapter in her Album of Horses, beautifully illustrated by Wesley Dennis. I showed that chapter to my dad and he said something like "We should go there."
"What? It's like a real place?"
We went when I was in high school, the last year Misty was alive. I was blown away. I returned, with tent, with backpack, with kayak, and with one horse that truly belonged with an ex-boyfriend, not me.
It is my favorite place on the planet. I'm writing my own stories about it.
So, I picked up the Haunted Lagoon, to see what someone else had written about the place.
The Book:
...has a copyright of 1959. I was four. Misty of Chincoteague was written in 1947. (She was about 26 when she died, not that terribly old for a pony).
I'm taking notes and writing this as I read it.
First the style is just awful. OK, maybe it's formulaic Kid Mystery of the 50s or something. A writer friend observed that we tend, in our millennium, to think cinematically, and write as if showing the reader a movie. Haunted Lagoon so does NOT do this. There is a lot of Exposition and Silly Dialog and Too Many Names to Keep Track Of and People Doing Exposition On The Phone and Backstory done with people having conversations and...
GAWD COULD WE JUST GET ON WITH SOME KIND OF ACTION ALREADY???
Everyone is horribly Privileged. They are in their own staterooms in a ship belonging to someone in the family and the Missing Captain who is at the center of the Mystery has his own sailing ship, a reproduction of the Flying Dutchman from the opera (there's an opera?). I have been on a number of sailing ship reproductions and have hung out with a small living history group called the Longship Company (40 foot Viking longship) and have some idea of how many people it takes to fly a ship, and how many gazillion supporters and volunteers it takes to fly the .org that manages said ship.
Yeah, right, your own ship. Uh Huh.
Oh, and the chartered flight and "attractive restaurants"... and on and on. I don't know if this is some kind of author fantasy about Being Rich And Stuff but it's horribly annoying. I far preferred the regular kids in Misty of Chincoteague who actually had to work to raise money to buy their pony.
One of the points I make in the art and writing I do is that you don't have to be rich to have adventures. With some imagination, you can Go Do Something Awesome. Got a dog? Got a bike? You can experience the thrill of mushing. Buy a kayak instead of going to the amusement park or getting five new video games. Go sail on a local tall ship (most sails are interactive and educational and rip roaring fun, ARRRRR!). Get a backpack at a thrift shop (I got a great one for $2). Buy a tent. A set of snorkeling gear.
Go have an adventure. You don't have to be able to charter a plane or have a stateroom.
Chincoteague locals do not speak Elizabethan English. You have to go inland, across the Chesapeake Bay to Smith and Tangier Islands, settled for about 400 years, to find that. And it has evolved somewhat from the language of the earliest colonists. Wiki has this to say about Tangier.
GAWD COULD WE JUST GET ON WITH SOME KIND OF ACTION ALREADY???
Everyone is horribly Privileged. They are in their own staterooms in a ship belonging to someone in the family and the Missing Captain who is at the center of the Mystery has his own sailing ship, a reproduction of the Flying Dutchman from the opera (there's an opera?). I have been on a number of sailing ship reproductions and have hung out with a small living history group called the Longship Company (40 foot Viking longship) and have some idea of how many people it takes to fly a ship, and how many gazillion supporters and volunteers it takes to fly the .org that manages said ship.
Yeah, right, your own ship. Uh Huh.
Oh, and the chartered flight and "attractive restaurants"... and on and on. I don't know if this is some kind of author fantasy about Being Rich And Stuff but it's horribly annoying. I far preferred the regular kids in Misty of Chincoteague who actually had to work to raise money to buy their pony.
One of the points I make in the art and writing I do is that you don't have to be rich to have adventures. With some imagination, you can Go Do Something Awesome. Got a dog? Got a bike? You can experience the thrill of mushing. Buy a kayak instead of going to the amusement park or getting five new video games. Go sail on a local tall ship (most sails are interactive and educational and rip roaring fun, ARRRRR!). Get a backpack at a thrift shop (I got a great one for $2). Buy a tent. A set of snorkeling gear.
Go have an adventure. You don't have to be able to charter a plane or have a stateroom.
Chincoteague locals do not speak Elizabethan English. You have to go inland, across the Chesapeake Bay to Smith and Tangier Islands, settled for about 400 years, to find that. And it has evolved somewhat from the language of the earliest colonists. Wiki has this to say about Tangier.
- The local accent is not unlike that of the "Hoi Toiders" of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, also settled by English settlers, many of whom still have descendants living on the islands today. Before bridges were built in the 1930s, the only form of transport between or off the islands was by boat, which allowed for the islands to stay isolated from much of the rest of the mainland. This helped to preserve the maritime culture and the distinctive Outer Banks brogue, which sounds more like an English accent than it does an American accent. Many "bankers" have often been mistaken for being from England or Ireland when traveling to areas outside of the Outer Banks. The brogue is most distinctive the further south one travels on the Outer Banks, with it being the thickest on Ocracoke Island andHarkers Island. Locally, the accent is called "Hoi Toider", in that the term "High tider" is pronounced with a distinctive "oy" in the hard "i".
Geography, or Too Bad You Didn't Have Google Earth: Some of the early descriptions of the islands are pretty vague and wrong. Assateague is very low with nearly no dunes. On the north, Maryland end are some dunes, but not very high there either. The barrier island goes from beach to low dunes to interdune (with scraggly plants and some shrubs) to the shrub zone to islands of trees (literally islands, those chunks of ground are higher allowing trees to grow) to another shrub zone, to high marsh (flooded only rarely) to low marsh (different grass, flooded daily) to the bay. The zones are fairly distinct and have different plants and creatures including no few endangered species like DelMarVa fox squirrels and piping plovers. Silent Spring had not yet been written, the space program had barely begun, and brown pelicans moved into the islands sometime after I started going there regularly in the 80s. There is indeed a Fishing Point (I was thinking of Fisherman's island at the end of the DelMarVa penninsula at first) on the inside of the Hook at Tom's Cove. You would, indeed be able to see the Assateague Light from there, but landing even a small aircraft there would be problematic; it's quite flat but a lot of it is under shallow water. I dragged my kayak across the shallows there once... my kayak floats in about 4" of water...
Captain Forsythe settles on Chincoteague because it reminds him of home.. in the UK. Ummmm... to borrow an Anglicism, erm... nope. Due east of Chincoteague is approximately Spain's nose. Chincoteague and Assateague, like the rest of the Mid-Atlantic coast, are flat and sandy, nary a rock in sight, unless it's riprap put there to keep shorelines from eroding, which is what sandy shorelines do: shapeshift under wind and tide and time. The Captain would still like the islands, they're nice. But like all other islands, wary of outsiders and "come heres".
Much of the other descriptions of islands and such is actually quite nice. You can follow the adventures of Our Heroes in the book on google earth after all.
The Assateague Airforce (aka, Vampires R Us); so far no mention of anyone wielding bug spray, not even the missing Villain. You either need to carry 100% DEET or cloak yourself like a Bedouin to go anywhere in the back country... unless you're in a boat. There are dozens of kinds of bloodsucking mosquitoes, flies, and three kinds of ticks.
The Charles Wilson Treasure: is one of the more famous legends of Chincoteague. While several actual sunken ships have been found and charted off the Assateague coast, no one has found pirate Wilson's treasure... if it exists.
Captain Forsythe settles on Chincoteague because it reminds him of home.. in the UK. Ummmm... to borrow an Anglicism, erm... nope. Due east of Chincoteague is approximately Spain's nose. Chincoteague and Assateague, like the rest of the Mid-Atlantic coast, are flat and sandy, nary a rock in sight, unless it's riprap put there to keep shorelines from eroding, which is what sandy shorelines do: shapeshift under wind and tide and time. The Captain would still like the islands, they're nice. But like all other islands, wary of outsiders and "come heres".
Much of the other descriptions of islands and such is actually quite nice. You can follow the adventures of Our Heroes in the book on google earth after all.
The Assateague Airforce (aka, Vampires R Us); so far no mention of anyone wielding bug spray, not even the missing Villain. You either need to carry 100% DEET or cloak yourself like a Bedouin to go anywhere in the back country... unless you're in a boat. There are dozens of kinds of bloodsucking mosquitoes, flies, and three kinds of ticks.
The Charles Wilson Treasure: is one of the more famous legends of Chincoteague. While several actual sunken ships have been found and charted off the Assateague coast, no one has found pirate Wilson's treasure... if it exists.
Wild Horses couldn't... have come off a shipwreck. Or maybe they did, but it's mainly a nice legend. Certainly Spanish explorers carried horses (they introduced the equine to the Americas), certainly their ships wrecked (see above, charted wrecks on Assateague coast, you can even buy a map of the known wrecks in the various visitor's centers). Later colonists turned various livestock loose on the big island to avoid fencing taxes and such. They rounded up their livestock whenever they needed it to sell, or needed to tend to it. The last great sheep roundup was in 1914. The ponies may have started with some Spanish horses, but were mainly from stock turned loose by other colonists. The book's author says that the Spanish brought Arabian horses. Nope, they brought Spanish Barbs, a completely different type of horse from the "Arabian" area of the world, hence the confusion. Spanish Barb blood can still be seen in some pockets of wild west mustangs (to the east of where my mare came from is Steens Mountain, famous for its Kiger Mustangs)... and in east coast barrier island ponies like the Bankers, Corollas and Shacklefords of the Outer Banks, in the Marsh Tacky of South Carolina, and the Florida Cracker horse. The livestock driving style of the east involved cracking bullwhips (last seen on Chincoteague a few years ago, banned by some crazy animal rights groups), hence "cracker horse". A different style of livestock handling evolved in the wild west, based on what they learned from the Spanish.
Also: horse have hair, not fur. Not just semantics or horseman lingo, fur involves an undercoat. Horses have hair, though the Chincoteague ponies get quite hairy in the winter which looks furry. Do your research, spend some time in a stable.
Wild ponies don't randomly stomp people. They are quite placid. In fact, they look extremely tame (unlike my wild mustang who snorted like a cannon when you got within her flight radius, then basically teleported as far as she could). They are quite tame. They are used to seeing people, being rounded up, or on the north end (a separate herd since the '62 storm) used to hanging out in camps with flapping tents and people and stuff. The thing they are not is trained, which makes poking, prodding, petting or sitting on them dangerous; they tend to react with sudden flight, stomping, kicking, teeth, or just swinging a head or shoulder or butt into you. All of which are hazardous for humans.
They also don't really gallop anywhere much, they are supreme energy conservationists. those photos of galloping Chincoteague and Assateague ponies were shot by lucky photogs who live there and spend ages tracking herds till they get That Awesome Shot.
Basically, the author is NOT a horseman.
The mystery clues are clever but highly unlikely. And really unbelievable. Oooooh look a dropped English coin! Wow, can't this villain just check his pockets?
Uneccessary Drama: we did not need a fire and a rescue that has nothing to do with the story or mystery. We simply needed some detective work.
Ditto for the plane crash.
Actual good detective work: discovering that the cable from a Salisbury lawyer was a fake.
Points for including the Awesome and Famous Chincoteague Oyster: yes, they are that awesome. Oysters tend to develop flavor from the waters they are grown in, so each type has its own quality, like good wine.
Points for nice interior illustrations, too few of them though.
Also: horse have hair, not fur. Not just semantics or horseman lingo, fur involves an undercoat. Horses have hair, though the Chincoteague ponies get quite hairy in the winter which looks furry. Do your research, spend some time in a stable.
Wild ponies don't randomly stomp people. They are quite placid. In fact, they look extremely tame (unlike my wild mustang who snorted like a cannon when you got within her flight radius, then basically teleported as far as she could). They are quite tame. They are used to seeing people, being rounded up, or on the north end (a separate herd since the '62 storm) used to hanging out in camps with flapping tents and people and stuff. The thing they are not is trained, which makes poking, prodding, petting or sitting on them dangerous; they tend to react with sudden flight, stomping, kicking, teeth, or just swinging a head or shoulder or butt into you. All of which are hazardous for humans.
They also don't really gallop anywhere much, they are supreme energy conservationists. those photos of galloping Chincoteague and Assateague ponies were shot by lucky photogs who live there and spend ages tracking herds till they get That Awesome Shot.
Basically, the author is NOT a horseman.
The mystery clues are clever but highly unlikely. And really unbelievable. Oooooh look a dropped English coin! Wow, can't this villain just check his pockets?
Uneccessary Drama: we did not need a fire and a rescue that has nothing to do with the story or mystery. We simply needed some detective work.
Ditto for the plane crash.
Actual good detective work: discovering that the cable from a Salisbury lawyer was a fake.
Points for including the Awesome and Famous Chincoteague Oyster: yes, they are that awesome. Oysters tend to develop flavor from the waters they are grown in, so each type has its own quality, like good wine.
Points for nice interior illustrations, too few of them though.
Tads: are a kind of bird mentioned in the book. Can't be found with google and have never heard of them. Might be an archaic local name for some sort of wading bird.
They go tramping through the woods with no bug spray. Now that's fantasy.
Where are you running for help.. on an island? There's some 50s silliness about girls who need protecting, going for rope that's on a boat which may or may not have gone off to the other side of the planet, and running for help on Pirate Island which is about as big as your local grocery store. Um. Nope.
Besides, a good knife can cut some greenbriar. Then you knock off the thorns and use it. It's quite strong. You can also braid it or weave it into wreaths. been there, done that.
Points for using the fact that the waters around Chincoteague and Assateague are ridiculously shallow when the "prisoner" goes overboard and wades ashore.
Points for showing the shapeshifting quality of barrier islands; someone notes that the Pirate Islands might not have been there at the time the pirate buried his treasure. It is stated that the sand, shoals and shorelines shapeshift with time and tide.
http://thehiddengalleon.com/ Here is the real sunken pirate ship that inspired two children's classics: Misty of Chincoteague and Treasure Island. Disney made its first non-animated film: Treasure Island, then the amusement park ride Pirates of the Caribbean, then, you know, those other pirate films.
The barrier island of Assateague has rolled over on itself westward. There are tree stumps on the beach that were once part of a bay hundreds of years ago. Oyster shells on the beach are also from the past: oysters grow in the bay, the shells are fossils from a time when that piece of sand was the bay.
They go tramping through the woods with no bug spray. Now that's fantasy.
Where are you running for help.. on an island? There's some 50s silliness about girls who need protecting, going for rope that's on a boat which may or may not have gone off to the other side of the planet, and running for help on Pirate Island which is about as big as your local grocery store. Um. Nope.
Besides, a good knife can cut some greenbriar. Then you knock off the thorns and use it. It's quite strong. You can also braid it or weave it into wreaths. been there, done that.
Points for using the fact that the waters around Chincoteague and Assateague are ridiculously shallow when the "prisoner" goes overboard and wades ashore.
Points for showing the shapeshifting quality of barrier islands; someone notes that the Pirate Islands might not have been there at the time the pirate buried his treasure. It is stated that the sand, shoals and shorelines shapeshift with time and tide.
http://thehiddengalleon.com/ Here is the real sunken pirate ship that inspired two children's classics: Misty of Chincoteague and Treasure Island. Disney made its first non-animated film: Treasure Island, then the amusement park ride Pirates of the Caribbean, then, you know, those other pirate films.
The barrier island of Assateague has rolled over on itself westward. There are tree stumps on the beach that were once part of a bay hundreds of years ago. Oyster shells on the beach are also from the past: oysters grow in the bay, the shells are fossils from a time when that piece of sand was the bay.
Priviledged again: oooooooo we just happen to have skin diving equipment with us....
This is the late 50s, so just picture Sea Hunt. Also they would actually have said "skin diving", not SCUBA diving, so that part's good. Kids on a trip would probably have snorkeling gear, not skin diving gear, except for our over-privileged heroes.
You actually can learn to dive cheap: I joined a dive club, borrowed gear, bought used gear, and dived places that weren't warm with 200 feet of visibility. Still fun. The Mid-Atlantic Coast tends to look like a desert underwater, until you drop a shipwreck on it, which then becomes a kind of artificial reef, attracting all kinds of life.
Double Points for describing the fishing boat, and the types of fish available at that time of year.
Oxygen tanks: when are writers going to understand that scuba divers don't use oxygen. Oxygen is toxic at depth. We use air, just air, compressed air for recreational diving. too bad the author didn't have some Jacques Cousteau specials or episodes of Sea Hunt to inspire her to write more about the dive, which would actually have been interesting... as opposed to the random silly banter and descriptions of lunch at the hotel.
This is the late 50s, so just picture Sea Hunt. Also they would actually have said "skin diving", not SCUBA diving, so that part's good. Kids on a trip would probably have snorkeling gear, not skin diving gear, except for our over-privileged heroes.
You actually can learn to dive cheap: I joined a dive club, borrowed gear, bought used gear, and dived places that weren't warm with 200 feet of visibility. Still fun. The Mid-Atlantic Coast tends to look like a desert underwater, until you drop a shipwreck on it, which then becomes a kind of artificial reef, attracting all kinds of life.
Double Points for describing the fishing boat, and the types of fish available at that time of year.
Oxygen tanks: when are writers going to understand that scuba divers don't use oxygen. Oxygen is toxic at depth. We use air, just air, compressed air for recreational diving. too bad the author didn't have some Jacques Cousteau specials or episodes of Sea Hunt to inspire her to write more about the dive, which would actually have been interesting... as opposed to the random silly banter and descriptions of lunch at the hotel.
- For some diving, gas mixtures other than normal atmospheric air (21% oxygen, 78%nitrogen, 1% trace gases) can be used, so long as the diver is competent in their use. The most commonly used mixture is nitrox, also referred to as Enriched Air Nitrox (EAN), which is air with extra oxygen, often with 32% or 36% oxygen, and thus less nitrogen, reducing the risk of decompression sickness or allowing longer exposure to the same pressure for equal risk. The reduced nitrogen may also allow for no stops or shorter decompression stop times or a shorter surface interval between dives. A common misconception is that nitrox can reduce narcosis, but research has shown that oxygen is also narcotic.
- The increased partial pressure of oxygen due to the higher oxygen content of nitrox increases the risk of oxygen toxicity, which becomes unacceptable below the maximum operating depth of the mixture. To displace nitrogen without the increased oxygen concentration, other diluent gases can be used, usually helium, when the resultant three gas mixture is called trimix, and when the nitrogen is fully substituted by helium, heliox.
- For dives requiring long decompression stops, divers may carry cylinders containing different gas mixtures for the various phases of the dive, typically designated as Travel, Bottom, and Decompression gases. These different gas mixtures may be used to extend bottom time, reduce inert gas narcotic effects, and reduce decompression times.
Pony attack; hilarious. First of all, black is a rare color on Assateague. Super rare. Black and white, more common. Or chestnut, bay, palomino or buckskin, or pinto variations of those. Greenbriar ( a thorny vine) is common in the woods, and you could get tangled in it, though I have never heard of a pony getting into it. A friend's horse did get stuck in some dangling grapevine on a trail ride once. And I have to allow the author the Mystique of the Wild Black Horse. I grew up on Zorro and Fury and the Black Stallion. My own wild horse was picked partly because she was black. There's something wilder and darker and more mysterious about The Black Horse.
Domestic stallions can be quite nasty. I know of one trainer who was grabbed by the arm and flung by an Appaloosa sport horse stallion (he was a meanie). I saw the bloodbath that ensued when two stallions got loose at a farm and had at it.
Wild stallions have better social manners: they live with herds from birth and their discussions (which I have seen a few of) are loud, toothy and involve lots of screaming. One set of stallions danced and hollered over beach blankets and boomboxes on north beach one day. When they parted, we approached the one left on the beach. He had big wet mouthmarks all over but was otherwise unharmed. It's mostly sound and fury and display to intimidate the weaker stallion into fleeing. It would more likely be the foal's mother who would kick you if you were too close (or, at least that's what happened with my mare). This is one of those Uneccessary Drama moments; one could have had an encounter with wild ponies that was more realistic and taught the reader something about them.
Points: for girls who deal well with small power boats. they should have also put an oar down to test the bottom; it can be sandy or silty or mucky depending on the shape of the bottom and the wind and tides.
Points: for pointing out that the weather is changeable and dangerous if you are in a small boat. Or on land. I've camped on north beach in a pretty good wind (flapping tent for three days, anchored carefully). I've hiked north for four days hoping for good weather, and figured on huddling in the lowest spot at the base of a dune if a thunderstorm broke. I've watched thunderheads pile up over the mainland to break over Chincoteague Bay and raced them, in a kayak, to a duck blind of epic proportions where I weathered the storm. I saw, on the news, Hurricane Sandy devastate New York, and visited Chincoteague after the storm. Chincoteague is protected by the great barrier of Assateague and by intact salt marshes. It weathered the hurricane quite well. More often it gets Nor'Easters like the Ash Wednesday storm of '62 which devastated both islands. Marguerite Henry's Stormy Misty's Foal came out of that storm, as did the end of development on Assateague and the beginning of protecting it as a series of parks and wildlife refuges.
Cranes: don't hang out on Assateague, but various herons and egrets do. Also ibises and cormorants. There are birds in the "crane" category that hang out in the marshes: rails, moorhens and soras, oystercatchers and coots.
Domestic stallions can be quite nasty. I know of one trainer who was grabbed by the arm and flung by an Appaloosa sport horse stallion (he was a meanie). I saw the bloodbath that ensued when two stallions got loose at a farm and had at it.
Wild stallions have better social manners: they live with herds from birth and their discussions (which I have seen a few of) are loud, toothy and involve lots of screaming. One set of stallions danced and hollered over beach blankets and boomboxes on north beach one day. When they parted, we approached the one left on the beach. He had big wet mouthmarks all over but was otherwise unharmed. It's mostly sound and fury and display to intimidate the weaker stallion into fleeing. It would more likely be the foal's mother who would kick you if you were too close (or, at least that's what happened with my mare). This is one of those Uneccessary Drama moments; one could have had an encounter with wild ponies that was more realistic and taught the reader something about them.
Points: for girls who deal well with small power boats. they should have also put an oar down to test the bottom; it can be sandy or silty or mucky depending on the shape of the bottom and the wind and tides.
Points: for pointing out that the weather is changeable and dangerous if you are in a small boat. Or on land. I've camped on north beach in a pretty good wind (flapping tent for three days, anchored carefully). I've hiked north for four days hoping for good weather, and figured on huddling in the lowest spot at the base of a dune if a thunderstorm broke. I've watched thunderheads pile up over the mainland to break over Chincoteague Bay and raced them, in a kayak, to a duck blind of epic proportions where I weathered the storm. I saw, on the news, Hurricane Sandy devastate New York, and visited Chincoteague after the storm. Chincoteague is protected by the great barrier of Assateague and by intact salt marshes. It weathered the hurricane quite well. More often it gets Nor'Easters like the Ash Wednesday storm of '62 which devastated both islands. Marguerite Henry's Stormy Misty's Foal came out of that storm, as did the end of development on Assateague and the beginning of protecting it as a series of parks and wildlife refuges.
Cranes: don't hang out on Assateague, but various herons and egrets do. Also ibises and cormorants. There are birds in the "crane" category that hang out in the marshes: rails, moorhens and soras, oystercatchers and coots.
Haunted Lagoon: the kids are exploring the Pirate Islands, north of the Maryland/Virginia border, on the bay side. The ocean side is a smooth line of sandy beach. The bay side is a woogity woogity scrawl of lagoons and inlets and "guts", saltwater creeks that peter out into marsh. I navigated this side by kayaking point to point rather than following the puzzle pieces of the shoreline. Pope's Bay campsite (part of the Maryland backcountry camping site system, it's on the bay) is just south of the Pirate islands, and is where I camped. There is an abandoned building, a crumbling dock and a solitary telephone or light pole. It's creepy. There is a State Line campsite (on the beach), the VA/MD border with its fence to separate the pony herds, and then nothing until you reach Chincoteague.
We're So Privileged: arranging with the hotel chef for a lunch to be packed... really? Who does that? You shop at Meatland (now Great Val-U) and take granola bars and canned soup with a pop top to eat cold unless you make a fire. Those little cups of fruit work well too.
Exposition in Dialog: ugh. "I noticed the boys have boots same as I do. We'll all put them on."
We Men Will Do This; well, it was the 50s. But still annoying. Bah, humbug.
Stuff happens right up until the last page. Sort of neat attempt to make it exciting up to the end and not have a chapter of wrap-up. Some of the action is just not really well described. We are not so much there watching it unfold as being told about it.
Cast of thousands: most kids book advice says something like "have two or three main characters at most." I prefer stuff like Harry Potter (with its cast of thousands), Lord of the Rings (with nine main characters and that's not even counting Gollum and Various Important Elves and Kings and Stuff), The Hobbit (with thirteen main characters who all have names that rhyme like Oin, Gloin and Bifur, Bofur, Bombur). I love epic but I could not keep the characters in Haunted Lagoon straight. There were a bunch of names and not much character.
Overall: it's an interesting foray into kid lit... how to write stuff, how not to write stuff... how stuff was written in the 50s, attitudes of the 50s, and how authors do their research... or not... and interpret an place familiar to me.
I've plied the waters of the Pirate Islands and the Haunted Lagoon. The real adventure was much more interesting.
We're So Privileged: arranging with the hotel chef for a lunch to be packed... really? Who does that? You shop at Meatland (now Great Val-U) and take granola bars and canned soup with a pop top to eat cold unless you make a fire. Those little cups of fruit work well too.
Exposition in Dialog: ugh. "I noticed the boys have boots same as I do. We'll all put them on."
We Men Will Do This; well, it was the 50s. But still annoying. Bah, humbug.
Stuff happens right up until the last page. Sort of neat attempt to make it exciting up to the end and not have a chapter of wrap-up. Some of the action is just not really well described. We are not so much there watching it unfold as being told about it.
Cast of thousands: most kids book advice says something like "have two or three main characters at most." I prefer stuff like Harry Potter (with its cast of thousands), Lord of the Rings (with nine main characters and that's not even counting Gollum and Various Important Elves and Kings and Stuff), The Hobbit (with thirteen main characters who all have names that rhyme like Oin, Gloin and Bifur, Bofur, Bombur). I love epic but I could not keep the characters in Haunted Lagoon straight. There were a bunch of names and not much character.
Overall: it's an interesting foray into kid lit... how to write stuff, how not to write stuff... how stuff was written in the 50s, attitudes of the 50s, and how authors do their research... or not... and interpret an place familiar to me.
I've plied the waters of the Pirate Islands and the Haunted Lagoon. The real adventure was much more interesting.
