The Island in October
Mara had been the previous summer and described it carefully. I went in October, when it was empty. We saw a completely different place.
Mara spent four days on Ossek the previous August and came back with strong opinions about the ferry schedule, the eastern beach, and a particular place that did one thing for breakfast and did it extremely well. She told me all of this in enough detail that when I booked my own crossing in October, I felt I already knew the island.
I did not know the island.
In August, apparently, Ossek has a café on every corner and the ferry runs twice a day. In October it has one café, open until noon, run by a woman named Ditte who closes if she needs to run an errand and leaves a note on the door. The ferry runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
I arrived on a Wednesday. I left the following Saturday. Four days, one café, one bakery, and a great deal of coastline.
What August and October have in common
The eastern beach is still excellent. The path along the northern cliff still takes forty minutes and is worth doing twice — once in each direction, because they look like different walks. The light at five in the afternoon is still remarkable, though in October it is gone by half past five, which concentrates it usefully.
Ditte's café serves the same breakfast Mara described: one thing, very well made. In August it is busy and social. In October I was, on most mornings, the only person there. Ditte and I had the kind of conversations that happen when neither person has anywhere else to be.
I came back and told Mara what I had found. She listened carefully, the way she does when she is updating her understanding of somewhere. Then she said she wanted to go back in October.
We have it booked. She is already planning what to eat.