A Day On Quail Island

Quail Island can be seen from the Lyttelton Harbor on the Banks Peninsula.

The quails it was named after are extinct and been replaced with California Quails instead.

I thought if I went on a Thursday I might have a quiet ferry ride to the island and spend the day exploring it in peace and quiet. Instead, I rode on one of two boats carrying me, a group of 90 excitable ten-year-olds, and some brave parents who would be in charge of minding the herd.

While the group of school children was busy organizing themselves by the pier, I started off at a brisk pace to stay well ahead of them.

The first place I came to was the old pier were Scott had unloaded his dogs and ponies for training in Antarctica.

The island served as a quarantine station for recently arrived immigrants and had a small leper colony. Prisoners were brought there to build stone walls and former sailors quarried rock there for ship's ballast.

One one side of the island the remains of several old ship hulls are visible.

Past the old pier I came across a large group of students from the local poly tech who had organized themselves into tribes and were pitching camp around a barracks building. They were required to swim to shore and were doing a series of survival exercises.

I became rather smug about their efforts to find resources when I rounded a corner and came across a pear tree. I ate two of the fruits which were  ripe juicy edible. The feeling of survivor queen was short lived however when I realized the the Department of Conservation had put out poison to kill rats and stoats. I spent the next few moments in quiet contemplation about smugness and comeuppances.

All along the trail I was followed and serenaded by fantails. They are fearless little birds who will flutter quite close in an effort to eat all the insects a walking human can scare up. They are also delightful in the way they perch nearby, fan out their tail feathers and make a small peep peeping sound to encourage you to keep moving.

Here are some pictures:

One of the little fellows was keeping watch over the island's only grave. It belongs to Ivon Skelton who died there at the age of 25 all alone and far from his home in Samoa. He had been sent to the leper colony and wasn't able to see his family. 

His grave site is covered in weeds and the fence around it is in need of repair. There has also been a shift in some of the ground around the site which may have been caused by earthquakes. 

I plucked a small purple flower and put on top of his grave.

The next place I came to was the ship graveyard. I had to climb down a cliff to get a closer look but it was worth it. I discovered a small covey of quails foraging on the hillside.

The long grass beside the water was warm and soft and filled with black crickets. There were small lizards everywhere. Best of all, I was alone on the beach and it was quiet.

When I scaled back up the the cliff I could hear the voices of shouting children. They had stopped nearby for lunch and, unknown to the them, were being observed by a nervous quail. I managed to snap a few shots before he took off.

 

The island is full of solemn places and tragic histories. Not even the charming fantails and comic quails could alleviate a lingering sadness at certain locations.

There were some brothers who bought land on the island and kept cattle there near a spring. Two of them drowned when they were returning to the island after collecting firewood.

The ponies that Scott took to Antarctica all died (as did Scott).

The lepers had to find ways of entertaining themselves and face the fact that they would never be part of the wider world. 

Writing Poorly

I sent off a children's story and it was rejected by the only agent who could have gotten it published here.

New Zealand as a country is actually one big, small town. 

There is no one else to consider the story if this one agent is not interested and, judging from the fact that she didn't even get the title of my story correct in her rejection letter, she's really not interested.

It was a very New Zealand-y story set in the Southern Alps on a remote sheep station with a kunekune, a huntaway and a trio of keas. 

To any non-kiwi readers, it's a story set in the mountains that features sheep, a pig, a dog and three alpine parrots. 

I feel that it could be salvaged and made into a good little tale if only someone would take the time to help me give it a gentle polish. 

I even had the perfect illustrator picked out- an old friend of mine who I believe is one of the greatest artists alive today. 

Alas, I'll never get to ask him to do me the honor.

I don't know what else to do. 

I have tried to write novels based on real events in my life but the characters were shallow and the dialogue was crap. 

I never thought it would be so hard to write about something that actually happened but it was. 

It was painful and I didn't want to write out all the details. I just wanted it to be done so I could get all the praise and adoration.

It started out in a promising way. 

My mentor and friend Blair Fuller (who helped found the Paris Review) opened his home to a small group of Tomales writers and we would read each other's pieces and offer critiques. I had just had an editorial published in the New York Times and the first two chapters of my story had the shimmer of Steinbeck in the details of modern Monterey. 

But it got worse as I tried to go on. 

Blair passed away, nasty disputes tore friendships apart in the town and my time of living in that superficially idyllic place came to an end.

After the ill-fated novel there was a brief attempt at short fiction, again, based on actual events that took place in New York when I was in my early 20s. 

I tried to capture the urgency and the thrill of the experience but once again failed to tell a story anyone would want to read. 

I sent it off to The Sun and the New Yorker anyway.

Both sent rejection letters. 

The New Yorker was the concise and polite. 

The Sun attempted to be clever and hip in their rejection. 

I imagine the latter being staffed by a bunch of recent college grads who wear dresses from Anthropology or grow  carefully waxed mustaches (or maybe both). 

Individuals who dabble in home beer brewing and only write on old typewriters or in leather bound journals. 

I saw them reviewing my work and shaking their heads sadly. As the guardians at the gate of all future classics, it was their solemn duty to protect the world from stink pieces like mine. But hey, at least they could write a quirky note to let me know I would not be joining their exalted ranks.

What to do now? I don't know. What do I do well? I don't know that either.