Returning to the Oceanic back door, you can see where the Pelicans live and the back "servants" area. The sea water towers are on the left side of the building. All the island drinking water comes from the mainland aboard the MV Thomas Laighton and is pumped from the dock into storage tanks at the base of the hotel.

Washing water comes from the clouds and flows off the roof of the hotel into a giant cistern in the basement of the hotel, here seen by an unidentified conferee. Summer visitors get an average of two "navy style" showers per week from cistern water reserves. Today there is under five inches of reserve water and it takes four inches to maintain the sprinkler system, so the manager may have to make some stinky decisions for the 250 quests and 100 staff on the island. Or they can hold a rain dance.

The Oceanic, like all Victorian hotels and homes, once dumped its waste in the ocean, but no more. Regulations now require the construction of this $550,000 waste treatment plant on the island.

Is that what we think it is? Nyaaaahhh, get us out of here! Actually, the obedient chemical "bugs" recycle the human waste material with hardly an odor. Try walking on the guano-caked rocks on Smuttynose across the harbor on a hot day if you want a whiff of pure Nature.

Whew, that was a lot of work. And now its back to the front porch of the Oceanic Hotel where we await the bell to dinner, waited on hand and foot, and then back outside while we digest all we've learned today. Class dismissed!

Disposable photos by J. Dennis Robinson
© 1999 SeacocastNH.com

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