The next potluck supper is on Wednesday, Jan. 15 at the Chappy Community Center from 6 to 8 p.m.

The sudden bone-chilling temperatures remind me of a January 10 years ago, when standing on Memorial Wharf on a windless sunny day, looking out towards Katama Bay, I remarked to my son-in-law, Erik Gilley, that it was too late for the harbor to freeze over. I said that spring was coming soon and that the winter had not been cold enough.

Two months later, on March 7, we were using an excavator onboard the On Time 2 to dig our way through the ice flows that had clogged the harbor the evening before. The harbor itself had only a thin layer of ice, but Cape Pogue bay had frozen to a depth of nearly half a foot. A couple of warm days had thawed that ice enough that it broke up and flowed out through the gut on an outgoing tide. The day was calm, so the ice loitered in the outer harbor until the evening high tide carried it en masse in past the lighthouse. Since there was no breeze to hold it back, the iceberg flow was able to make it around the curves of the channel. As they bumped up against the harbor ice sheet, the chunks piled up several layers deep.

This all occurred in a matter of minutes. Bob Gilles saw it coming and was able to get the ferryboat back to Edgartown just in the nick of time. There the ferry lay trapped. We expected the next falling tide to carry the ice away, but it stuck fast. The outer harbor was ice free as far as the beach club. In case someone needed to get to the hospital, the Oak Bluffs fire department stood by to race down with its fire boat and pick them from the beach club piers.

Next morning, it was obvious that the ice wasn’t going anywhere soon and Chappy remained isolated from the civilized world. We hatched a plan to put an excavator on board the On Time 2 which was in the extra slip on the Chappy side. After an hour of backing and filling using the propeller wash, that ferry was able to enter the Chappy slip and load the excavator.

We parked the machine with its toes right at the town facing end of the ferry boat. With the engine in gear at idle speed, we advanced into the pack of ice chunks. The excavator bucket reached out and scooped up bergs the size of pool tables and set them off to the side. Slowly we crept our way across the harbor leaving behind a channel little more than the width of the ferry’s hull. Finally arriving in Edgartown, the On Time 3 was set free. The On Time 2 headed back to Chappy and put the machine ashore.

We then turned our attention to loosening up the outer edge of the ice pack by zooming back and forth in front of it with the Carolina skiff. The flows undulated with the waves that we created but didn’t seem interested in departing. At noon, we headed home for breakfast, figuring to come back and challenge nature again with renewed vigor. Lo and behold, when we got back down to the point, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the channel was clear. Only a few stray icebergs floated by on the outgoing current. The ferry ran cautiously back and forth, avoiding the chunks as they broke away from what remained of the ice pack.

I have always been impressed by the forces of nature. That was a wonderful example of puny impatient humans trying to hurry nature along. At least now we know how to deal with the situation when it happens again.