Enjoy this full chapter about working on Monkey Island, from Jeff's newest book. Monkey Farm: A Summer Among the Macaques Audiobook: Libby Libro.fm Spotify Amazon Audible Apple Books Google Play Kobo Barnes and Noble eBook (DRM-free): Bookshop.org Kobo Kindle Barnes and Noble Canadian friends: I set the retail price at par - $10CAD and $10USD. Anything more is b******t. Keep looking if a site (like Amazon) is charging exchange rate. It's the least I can do to make up for our bad behavior down here. International: Rakuten Kobo Ireland Rakuten Kobo Belgium Audio French Rakuten Kobo Netherlands Rakuten Kobo Denmark Rakuten Kobo Turkey Rakuten Kobo Belgium Dutch Booktopia Product Storytel Indonesia Storytel France Storytel Iceland Bol.com Rakuten Japan Nextory Australia The full chapter follows, enjoy and let me know what you think... Chapter 11 - Monkey Island My summer among the macaques ended with a hangover, fresh stitches and a new tattoo. The story of how that happened began before dawn at a boat dock on Saint Helena Sound. The skills I'd acquired at the Yemassee clinic, specifically treating lacerations and fight wounds, had qualified me to work on Morgan Island when needed. The Monkey Farm maintained a colony of rhesus macaques on the island under a contract with the government. The macaques had been relocated to South Carolina from a government breeding facility in Puerto Rico fifteen years prior, after monkeys carrying the Herpes-B virus escaped into the community. After my boss recommended me to the Morgan Island team, the occupational health lab tested me for tuberculosis and hepatitis. The monkeys on the island were disease-free, and the humans who worked there were screened to make sure they didn't infect the animals. The lab also re-tested me for Herpes-B virus, carried by many of the macaques I worked with. Herpes-B was harmless to the monkeys, but could kill me. The re-test confirmed I hadn't been infected by an accidental needle stick the month before. After I stuck myself with that used needle, I rushed back to the clinic and scrubbed the wound with iodine and a stiff brush for ten minutes, then flushed the wound with water for another twenty minutes. Either the monkey hadn't carried B virus or the infection-control procedure worked. Good news! With blood tests out of the way, I was given the dates I would work on Morgan Island and instructions to take the morning boat from Eddings Point. My boss dictated directions. "Take the Carteret Street bridge from Beaufort on the mainland to Lady's Island. Continue on the Sea Island Parkway. Pass Datha, Distant, Warsaw and Polawana Islands. Keep going on to Saint Helena Island. Turn left on Eddings Point Road, go a couple miles across the causeway to Eddings Point Landing. Boat leaves at 6:30 am sharp. Be early because they'll leave you at the dock if you're one minute late." A winding pre-dawn drive across the archipelago of Saint Helena Sound got me to the dock just after 6:00 am. A car and two pickup trucks were already parked in an oyster shell lot between the narrow causeway and the salt marsh. The trucks lit the marsh with their headlights. The beams followed a walkway of planks laid between pilings out to open water where I could just make out a boat tied to a floating dock. Three people I'd never met were ferrying boxes of supplies and bags of Purina Monkey Chow from the trucks to the boat. I got out of my own truck with a duffel bag holding my coveralls and boots. Unsure what do do next, I went and stood next to the walkway, thinking maybe I could help. The three men ignored me as they sleepily went about their stevedoring. The veterinarian I was to assist that day climbed out of a nearby station wagon and trudged slowly over, a bag similar to mine slung over her shoulder. We exchanged sleepy good mornings. She wore a dark knit watch cap. It was September, and the air was thankfully cool after a shatteringly hot Lowcountry August. That heat pushed me down with a heavy weight from dawn to dusk. It was hardest in coveralls, boots and a mask, but even on my days off I stayed indoors in the air conditioning. That August was the first time in my life I didn't want to go outside, even to swim since the body temperature water did nothing to cool me down. Thankfully, September broke the spell. That morning the breeze off the salt marsh was brisk and fresh. We stayed out of the way while the crew finished loading the boat. The one in charge, a big man I hadn't met, turned off the headlights in one, then the other truck. Big Man motioned to us to follow as he crossed the walkway to join the two people already on the boat. His heavy steps made the planks bounce gently between the pilings. I stepped down a short ramp from the fixed walkway to the floating dock. I followed the veterinarian who had already climbed aboard the boat. Free from the glare of headlights, my eyes started to adjust to the pre-dawn light. The simple workboat was sturdily built of white fiberglass. It had a windshield on top of a tiny cabin in the bow. The steering wheel and throttle were mounted next to a ship's compass bolted to the top of the cabin. The letters and numbers of the compass glowed from a soft yellow light inside the compass housing. I could see that we were pointed roughly north. The inboard motor repeated a quiet rumble under an engine box piled with supplies. Big Man quickly untied the lines, bow and stern, and climbed into the boat to take the wheel. He pushed the throttle forward and spun the wheel to the left. The boat rose smoothly on plane as we motored into Jenkins Creek. My eyes now fully adjusted, I could see the glow of sunrise build in the sky to our right, and there was enough ambient light to see our surroundings. We looked up at the top of tall marsh grass speeding by on either side of the Creek. Five months earlier in May, the grass was a green fringe barely above the tidal marshes at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers. The three rivers gave their water and their names to the ACE Basin, a pristine 350,000 acre nursery estuary in Saint Helena Sound. Smack dab in the middle of the ACE Basin sat Morgan Island, the only completely undeveloped island in the estuary. Undeveloped, but not uninhabited. The others on the boat didn't say much as we wound through the creeks and rivers on our way to Morgan Island. Between the early hour and the routine of what was regular duty for everyone else, I was left to watch and wonder. We shot out of Jenkins Creek into the wider Morgan River then turned east. Our bow was pointed toward the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The top edge of the sun broke above the watery horizon. A dorsal fin broke the surface of the water in front and to the right of the boat. A shark! No, sharks don't surf. It was a porpoise. The sleek marine mammal caught a ride on the wave of water pushed aside by our bow until we turned to head north up Parrot Creek next to Morgan Island. Morgan Island is technically six square miles, but only one square mile is high and dry. The rest is marsh. We motored in a long clockwise loop around the island's northern perimeter. At a buoy with a flashing green light, we turned south into the mouth of an unnamed tidal creek that led to the interior. After ten minutes winding through the creek, Big Man pulled back on the throttle. The boat slowed and we putted slowly toward the forested upland of Morgan Island. I pushed to the front of the cockpit to spot the throngs of free-range macaques that must've been gathered on shore to greet us. But weren't. Instead, a sleepy woman took our lines and tied our boat to a simple wooden pier that jutted out of bushes and trees that lined the shore beyond. A second boat was tied up on the other side of the dock, nearly identical to ours but older and more weathered. It was covered in morning dew and had been there all night. The veterinarian motioned me to climb out so the crew could unload. The tide crested during the trip out, so it was a short step up from the boat to the dock. We carried our duffel bags down the dock, walking alongside the woman who'd come to meet us. She wore the dark blue coveralls of an animal care technician. She seemed to wake up and nodded a greeting to me. "Welcome to Monkey Island son! I'm Dianne, you're in for a big day today!" I still didn't know what I was in for, only that my clinical skills had improved to the point where I could 'go out to Morgan for census.' The low morning sun lit the dock, but it was still dark under the trees on shore. I stepped off the pier onto the island proper. The ground was sand mixed with bits of dry organic matter fallen from a dense canopy above. When we stepped into the shadows of the trees we also stepped onto a dense mat of dead leaves, palmetto fronds, and pine needles. The branches of the pine and live oak trees above interlocked with each other to provide support against strong ocean winds. This mesh of branches was a distinguishing characteristic of the island's maritime forest. A perfect habitat for the rhesus macaques I had yet to see. We walked up a trail to a decrepit cabin with a low, sagging metal roof. A tall radio antenna shot straight up from the peak of the roof. It's thin outline was visible against the large white plastic tank of an improvised water tower behind the cabin. The cabin itself was painted a drab light brown that blended with the forest. More so because the paint peeled up in places as if to mimic leaves. A screened porch spanned the front of the building. Through its dusty screen I could see an old plaid couch and a worn yellow vinyl recliner. The veterinarian stepped on to the porch through a crooked screen door. I followed her past the junky furniture through a weathered wood doorframe into the cabin. Its old door was p
