Quit picking on Ouzinkie

The one time I saw it, from the stern of a 24-foot skiff, Ouzinkie didn’t look like much. A patch of siding sticking out here and there from a riot of green forest. And I was probably distracted, too. At the moment, the skipper of the skiff, my host, was telling me the story of an accident that had taken the lives of a boat full of Old Believers nearby some years earlier. Rescuers, he said, could hear them trapped in the hull of the overturned vessel, clawing in vain for a way out, but could do nothing to help. As we skiffed through the narrows that day, the ocean didn’t seem particularly treacherous. But that story, and scores of others like it, underscore the dangers still inherent to travel in many parts of the state.