As always, the first vacation day was the longest. In the morning, we picked up Grandpa and Grandma by the ferry and moved into the house - four bedrooms, large living room, large kitchen, wraparound deck. But no A/C. It was hot and humid, so we opened all windows and doors which somehow woke up and let into the house a stray bat. A few minutes of panic ensued, but then we caught it with an old fishing net and let go outside. The fishing net had a long rough wood handle from which I got stuck with a huge splinter under a nail that we then spent 30 minutes removing. 
Once that was done, the boat people brought the rented outboard engine. They plopped it on the boat and wished us good luck. It was around 6, so having two more hours of daytime, we decided to take the boat to the beach. The six of us boarded it and 20 minutes later, we were playing in the high waves of Atlantic. We spent about an hour on the beach and headed back. A few minutes into the return trip the motor stalled. The attempts to revive it did succeed and with much swearing, yelling and screaming, Grandpa and I grabbed creaky oars and start rowing home. It was getting dark, but, thankfully, the neighbor turn on the lights in his house and it served us a beacon. It took us about 50 minutes and we made it just in time, with the last ray of light. A bit shaken by the experience, we cleaned up and hurried out for a dinner in the famous rib place.
Next morning, the apologetic boat people gave us the whole new skiff and undeterred by the previous night experience we went back to the beach. There we caught a bucket of crabs which we all later ate with great pleasure. Grandpa and Grandma also picked some wild mushrooms and fried them.
We celebrated Max's birthday on Tuesday by kayaking and then having a dinner at a fancy French restaurant. Max likes fancy expensive places where he orders mostly chicken strips, fries or burgers.
The rest of the vacation went by fast and mostly uneventful. It was a perfect beach vacation - волновались в основном о том как проголодаться и где поесть. We slept late, ate some breakfast at home, went to the beach, bickered about lunch choices, then had lunch, then went back to the beach, bickered some more about dinner, then had dinner, watch some old DVDs and called it a night.
We went crabbing two more times. The locals told us to let go female crabs and they taught us how to tell them apart. Max questioned the wisdom of such sexist approach to population control, but we explained that not being exactly monogamous is helping crabs to survive and thrive with few males. Meanwhile, in the bucket, devoid of female presence, the caught crabs lapsed into debauchery and cannibalism.
Also, we learned how to shack oysters and had a little feast on the bought in the local store dozen.
Max learned how to pilot the boat, how to kayak and he also caught three crabs (two were females that he had to let go).
We also ate great clam chowders.
More vacation pictures are here.
Also, here are some videos:
When we came back, the vacation didn't end right away, thanks to our friend Аня Краузе who had a stopover in New York, on the way from Arizona back home. We picked her up at the airport and spent couple of hours together catching up...
It's when she left, the vacation ended. We looked around the house and discovered many surprises. The house was cleaned and washed while we were away, which left us with broken A/C, clogged kitchen sink, broken dishwasher, broken phone lines, things re-arranged, moved, lost, thrown out...
It took us a good part of next week to get our life back on track. But it was well worth it!
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