"A Season on Nantucket" Nantucket Island by Quehanna

In 1992 I was offered the job of Mate on a charter fishing boat out of Madaket on Nantucket's western end. I didn't have any boating experience to speak of; the Captain had met me on a previous trip, and he likes to break his Mates in new so he can train them the way he wants them, rather than how they did it for another captain. Thus began one of the more exciting larks of my life.

My baby sister was a schoolteacher on the island, and I had just moved back East after a forestry career out West for 14 years. Since she was still single and living alone on the island, she welcomed her big brother as roommate for the season.

Needless to say, it was very special to get to live on Nantucket rather than just be another tourist or wealthy vacationer. Being a fisherman and related to a schoolteacher meant that I got to meet the "working class" of people. I also worked part time on the weekends as an auction helper, which allowed me to see antiques and rugs be bought and sold.

Besides charter fishing for bluefish off the island's south shore, the Captain and I went commercial fishing for cod a number of times. Those trips were 20 miles east of the island, or 50 miles at sea. Long days of hard work on the open ocean.

Being a landscape photographer, of course I spent my many days off by photographing the island from end to end. I had two photos published in a local magazine.

• Pros:Beautiful, rugged, quaint, historic, isolated
• Cons:Isolated, cold, fog can ground air travel, ferry ride is over 2 hours.
• In a nutshell:A World of Its Own Out On the North Atlantic