Nobody Wants to Visit Vinalhaven?

I purposely feature somewhat obscure sites on the Twelve Mile Circle. Thus, my visitors tend to fall into two categories:

  • Those who consider themselves connoisseurs of geo-oddities.
  • Those who visit a single time because a search engine told them they should come here.

Predictability

I’ve become pretty adept at watching the news cycles. Often I can predict visitor surges about to wash across my site like a ring produced by a proverbial stone thrown into a pond. It’s a fun game and I enjoy it. I’ll even make little mental bets with myself. I’ve also learned to spot trending pages in near real-time. Then I track them back to their sources, either due to an event or a link from a major website. I pour over the visitor statistics like an obsessed baseball fan.

That’s why I’m a bit surprised that I received only seven visitors on my Vinalhaven Ferry and Island page yesterday.


Why Vinalhaven?

Vinalhaven (map) is a small island located off the coast of southeastern Maine. It has about 1,200 residents, mostly lobstermen and their families. I was lucky enough to visit during the summer of 2009.

Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

But Mr. 12MC, one might argue, Vinalhaven is in the news right now solely because its residents are being infected in disproportionate numbers with MRSA, the flesh-eating bacteria! Who would want to visit this place while a dangerous pathogen is on the loose? Isn’t that a bit unrealistic? To that I would counter: that hasn’t stopped anyone from visiting my Plum Island page — one of my more popular lately, actually — and that place is infected with anthrax!

I demonstrate to myself, once again, that I’m out of step with the collective wisdom of the public. Maybe that’s why Twelve Mile Circle will never be more than a small niche publication. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.


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