Reggie Cheever's Boat Dock Ada's Reef Light Cheever Museum Egbert Island The Roost The Little Harbor Reggie Cheever's House Dinah's Cottage Old Breakwater Cattail Island The Town of Swallowtail Rabbit Ear Point Little Egg Island Les's Boat Nadine's Farm Ferry Dock Channel
SWALLOWTAIL ISLAND Islander Hotel Inchworm Island Summerson Beach N W S E Big Egg Island Feather Island
chapter 1 IT’S A DRIZZLY SUNDAY MORNING the day after my twelfth birthday and my family such as it is has arrived at Swallowtail Island in the western end of Lake Erie All six of us stand on the foredeck of the ferry Niagara as it makes the turn at the buoy marked R3 at the entrance to the harbor My ten year sister Pip and I shiver in our thin cotton dresses our arms pocked with goose bumps as the town comes into view before us Its two piers are like long arms reaching out into the harbor to greet us Pip’s interpretation or to push us away mine As the Niagara bullies its way down the narrow channel its bow pushing a wall of water the previously unruffled unruffled surface is pulled and stretched like gray taffy Moored boats dance in our wake as we pass bows and sterns rising and dipping with each wave Near the east shore a fleet of mallards 1
