When Jim Boos, a retired yacht captain living on Bequia, took it upon himself to help the community rebuild a historic whaleboat called the Iron Duke, he hired Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin to fly down this winter with their families and a few tools and help get the local boatbuilders started.

As I set out one cool spring morning, I heard a Carolina wren singing nearby.

The job description seems to keep shifting.

This morning I heard that sound again. A soft fluttery knocking, repeatedly.

Thirty-eight years ago on the beach in front of the Coastwise Packet Co., located next to The Black Dog Tavern, a man asked me a question that completely changed the direction of my life.

The recent news that the Nobel Prize-winning writer Mario Vargas Llosa had died immediately transported me back through space and time to Vineyard Haven.