When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Going through the 1,200 photographs I took earlier this month from spending ten days out on the water. There is some pretty good stuff, and a lot of OK stuff. Time to assemble another video, but first I have to find a piece of music for it.
A cooler full of salmon, halibut and crab. What to do? We will be eating a lot of fish for the next few months.
Time to try some new recipes… The salmon tacos were pretty good, using pan fried pink salmon. The best so far was the king salmon, mesquite grilled with olive oil and Parmesan cheese on top. Add some grilled asparagus on the side for a meal. Need to thank Tony for that recipe.
It is pretty. It is a view I have spent all too much time staring at lately. Four times from the islands to the mainland in a bit over a month. Four times I have run the route from Kona, to Seattle, to Portland. Six times I have bounced through SeaTac airport when I add the run from Portland to Juneau and back.
I am back home for a while. Still dealing with the slightly disconnected feeling I often get after a long vacation. Living in a totally different world for a few weeks changes the definition of normal. It is back to work tomorrow and a resumption of the normal routine of life.
Scarcely a day goes by without seeing whales. Usually they are Humpbacks busily feeding in the rich Alaskan waters. But there are other whales to be seen, Orca are not common, but every trip we have seen a few. Most sightings are fairly distant, a tail on the horizon, the white plume of a blow. Close encounters will happen, a Humpback swimming by while you are anchored, a pod of Orca cruising down the same shore you are cruising up. Sometimes the whale appears when you least expect it, a sudden blow just off the bow. Cut the engine and drift, enjoying the view while giving the whale a chance to move off.
A small chunk of ice makes a perfect resting place for Arctic Terns. Somehow these beautiful birds fit both their name and the place. Looking as if they are made of ice themselves, grey with white and black markings, these birds just fit the environment.
Near midsummer in Alaska the sunsets are quite late and seem to last forever. In SE Alaska we are not north of the Arctic Circle, the Sun will set, if only for a few hours. It is the long twilight that really has an effect on the psyche. A sunset that seems to last for hours. Actually, it does last for hours…
A small lake above a remote bay on Kruzof Island, Alaska. A mile long hike through the rain forest and muskeg to climb to the shoreline. Rocks covered with moss and dwarf tress line the northern shore, creating vignettes any master Japanese gardener would treasure.
Small towns and settlements clustered along the water. With no roads, travel by water is the only way to reach these destinations in rural southeast Alaska. The sea provides either a highway or a runway for a float plane, making the docks the focal point of any town. This is where everyone arrives or departs, part of the life in this part of the world.
Where are we going today? The usual question, often the answer is ill defined. It is not that we do not have a plan, we do. It is simply that experience has taught us to keep the plan loose. Weather conditions, what the wildlife is doing, what we want to do. The plan can change.
Thus the plan is kept very general. There are some constraints, this year we have an entry permit for Glacier Bay National Park which specifies an entry date. Of course we do have to be back in Juneau in time to make the flight home. Beyond that? Just a general idea of where we plan to go and where we will stop.
The evening often sees my father and I with charts spread across the table and on the screen, planning the details of the next day and identifying a possible anchorage or two. We plan with a fair amount of experience, we have come to know these waters a bit. We plan with a backup in mind, we know that conditions will change, or we might linger when the whales or fish cooperate. Point Adolphus? How long do we want to watch whales. Funter Bay? Been there a few times… I can do that anchorage in the dark if need be.
Where are we going this year? I know… Perhaps here or there. We will just have to see. It has never failed to be fun.