The two Park rangers, Mackenzie and Josh, came by in the late afternoon and hung out for a bit. The wind was gusting then.
They wouldn’t tie up and come aboard. Instead, Josh first held onto the starboard side of Caro Babbo’s cockpit, then onto our Portland Pudgy, Hilary Hoffmann, which was tied up behind us.
We talked about whether it was windy outside in the strait and in other places in the park.
Josh told us that two coves down, where the park ranger cabin is, it was too windy Thursday to put their boat in the water. Commercial fishing vessels were all bunched up in the outer bays getting out of the weather.
It was never that bad here where Jennifer chose to anchor, though I didn’t tell Josh that. Unbidden, he offered that this was the best place to anchor for this weather.
Today, Friday, according to Josh and Jennifer, things should start to subside. This morning, all is silent here, without a ripple on the water.
During the night, we once again heard on VHF channel 16 fishing boats coordinating their movements as they pass near each other. They are on the move again.
I’ll subscribe to Jennifer’s theory that the valleys and other topology can absorb certain amounts of wind, then it overflows tumbling down with force like a breached dam.
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We have some bananas we need to use, so I’ll make some sweet banana muffins, closer to cupcakes because I’m in that mood and we have an excess of eggs I want to use.
There is a banana souffle I make that only uses eggs, sugar and bananas. Perhaps I’ll make that for dessert tonight.
Tomorrow or Sunday we’ll move across the strait to Kodiak and continue our move back to Homer.
This hasn’t been the trip of years past when the weather was something we shrugged and waited out. Despite there being more weather and as an average more severe, it is us who have changed.
We are more practiced, more experienced, and have a now tougher boat, but we’ve let this rattle us, or we’ve let our fears infect each other.
I’m not pleased with this. I’ve had mastery of these things, where the thrill is mastering the adversity. Instead, we’ve let it emotionally cow us. It never has before.
There are no decisions I can think of that we would have made differently, but our view of them has changed.
Perhaps, I am not showing the leadership I should.
It is heavily overcast. All is silent.
It is a minus three foot tide*. The beauty is exquisite.
The context we bring to situations is everything.
Thank you for staying with us across the years.
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* A minus three foot tide is when the low tide is the feet lower than mean low tide.
In the picture, you can see the flats and land that is normally not exposed.
Yesterday, was a minus four foot tide. The water between the island and the land in our cove disappeared. A brown bear walked out to the island and was snuffling around.
There are is a tour company that has a 30 metre boat about a mile and change from us. They brought a couple of skiffs over.
We wave, they wave back.
I’m pleased and I guess proud that we get to do this trip this way.
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