The Island: what and how I remember it to be

From the boat, you could just barely make out the washed-out gray exterior of the building, hunkered down into the sand and surrounded by the only spindly pines on the island.  Cautiously, with armfuls of clothing and blankets, we stepped into knee-deep frigid Atlantic water and waded our way to the shore.  The wind whipped my hair all directions, forcing me to constantly flick it back in order to take in my surroundings; around us, the shore stretched around mile in either direction, and directly in front of us, a wooden stairway with thick rope railings led off the beach and onto the tall dune our overnight home was perched on.  In distinct contrast to our crowd of animated, vivacious kids, the angry sky brimmed with dense storm clouds, reflecting in the ocean with dreary shades of navy and dark green.  
A wide grin seemed spread uncontrollably across my face as I trotted up the stairs and across the wooden platform to the camp.  It looked more like a post-apocalyptic bunker than anything else, but with a homey touch—a sort of oversized wooden shack, “the camp” sat low to the ground with a wrap-around deck, a singular large white-trimmed window in the front and a small, padlocked doorway.  After dunking my feet in a small white tub aside the door to wash the sand off, I walked through the equivalent of a mudroom (an atrium-looking sort of thing with big windows on one wall, functioning more as a closet than an entryway) and into the main room.   The interior was almost all wood, giving it a cabin-like wholesome coziness.  The furniture, true to Cape Cod form, was entirely of oceanic inspiration—in place of a coffee table, a decorative crab pot; rather than a sign saying “restroom,” a plaque explaining the definition of the sailing term “the head.”  There were exactly four doors along the length of the building; one opening to a single queen bedroom, the next to the manually operated toilet (use of restrooms requires a bit more work when without running water), the next two to identical rooms, each with a bunk against one wall and a queen against the other.  Out the back door, there was a path to a tiny, shabby outhouse, classically marked with a moon stamped on the door.
Someone thrust a Budweiser into my hand before I’d been there for more then five minutes.  We quickly dropped our piles of blankets and bags in various bedrooms before taking off to explore the island, beers in hand.  By the time we’d reached the shore opposite to the camp, the little grey shack with the wrap-around deck was entirely out of sight.  The shore dropped steeply into the water, sandbars exposed by the outgoing tide.   We splashed through channels between sandbars, sprinting back and forth across them and joking of catching great whites by cutting ourselves on empty beer cans and using them as bait.  After we’d tired, we settled down and planted ourselves in the sand.  All we could do was take it all in.  
We returned to the camp about an hour later, once we’d seen just about the whole island.  Our host's thirty-going-on-nineteen year old cleaning lady had returned to the island with the alcohol she’d bought us, including a handle of fireball, vodka, and tequila.  I took half a watermelon from the refrigerator, hollowed it out, poured the contents into a bowl and dumped about a third of the handle into it and let it soak.  I wandered around with it for nearly an hour, routinely shoveling mouthfuls of “vodkamelon” down my throat, leaving me absolutely sloshed by 1 PM.  From there I proceeded to put on old, dusty, quarter-inch-thick reading glasses I’d found in a basket, pick up an American flag, and speak only Spanish for about an hour and a half (unless, of course, it was to sing along to Steve Miller Band). 
The other half of our group arrived around 3 PM, appearing just as boggled as we initially did, taking in the fact that we were alone, free to get fucked up, on an beautiful island entirely to ourselves.  I made sure, naturally, to give everyone suffocating hugs and specify that I was wearing my “drunk glasses.”  The weather had started to turn, the clouds splitting to allow a golden, peachy late afternoon light to glimmer through.  We went for a second round of exploring, this time with smoke kit in hand rather than a beer.  A couple of us ladies hunkered beneath a large dune to try to escape the relentless lighter-snuffing wind to pack a bowl while the others took off to fish.  We soon found, however, that our dune wasn’t nearly enough protection, and the only way to get the bowl lit was to create a sort of tent out of my raincoat.  However, I was the only one to ever truly master the art of raincoat tenting—which ended in me smoking the entire bowl on my own.  By the time I re-emerged from the raincoat, the sky had already blended into a sunset purple, casting a strange sort of periwinkle glow over the sand.  I could just barely see dark figures on the horizon—the rest of the group out fishing on the shore.
“Guys, I’m pretty sure we’re in Vegas.”  I mumbled, wholly convinced we were in the outlying desert.  An all-body high was starting to set in—I rocked back and forth incessantly, not even knowing I was doing so until I had leaned so far over that I completely tipped into the sand.  I stayed there for a bit, burying and unburying my hand in the sand, fascinated by how phenomenally cool it and silky it was against my skin.

From there, my memory gets A) too hazy to recount and B) involves too much discussion of my companions to continue omission of names.  What I can say, however, is I had some of the most fun I've had in my entire life.

We woke up to what is, so far, the most beautiful morning of the summer.  The white sand, accented by patches of emerald seagrass and purple-flowered bushes, was framed by a crystalline and cloudless blue sky.  We rallied the still sleeping kids to partake in a speed-clean before slipping into our bikinis and taking to the sand.  We lay in the sun for a couple of hours, sharing adventures of the night before until some members had tired of each other's company and suggested we return to the mainland.  We made our way across the boardwalk-like structure and down the stairs to the beach, where our host's father sat waiting with the boat.  We exchanged goodbyes, clasping each other tightly in prolonged hugs, knowing we wouldn’t be seeing one another again for the rest of the summer.  We left on the next boat after that, ending our 24 hours—some of the greatest I’ve ever spent—on the island.