Tuesday August, 15,
Wednesday August, 15,
The morning view from the windshield.
A cool sprinkly morning; clouds drifting reluctantly past the trees. They seem to want to stay but just can’t quite hold on. It hasn’t rained here in a month. This is a rainforest. It’s supposed to be cool and rainy. We seem to have adjusted. Seventy-five degrees and sunny feels hot. We’re fine with sixty-five and cloudy.
The big lump near the top of the lone birch is an eagle nest with two youngsters in it. We sit outside and listen to the eagles talk.
The Chiswell Islands.
Rugged rocks.
We squeeze in tight in our little boat. Vertical cliffs soaring straight up from the sea.
Seabird rookeries.
A cacophony of sea and seabird sounds.
What a place.
Monday August, 13,
Maybe one more visit to Seward is in order. I hope so, because we’re already here.
A walk along the Bear Lake trail.
And in the water, salmon.
The now-red determined fish still trying to make it to that just-right stream to spawn.
Some are done.
Some still making that last exhausted heroic effort to get there.
Through water only half as deep as they are.
In the effort, not only replenishing the salmon population, but bringing marine nutrients from hundreds or thousands of miles away to the entire food chain upstream, feeding everything from apex predators all the way down to bacteria decomposing the corpses, producing nutrients even for the plant community; an entire ecosystem that depends on healthy salmon runs up free-flowing streams.
Saturday August, 11,
We’re back in Whittier; this time for more than a day trip.
We got a room with a view.
(I might have overused that phrase, but I can’t help myself.) Dry camping. No facilities. No problem.
Lou and Alma. We found your work boat.
Uh-oh.
The fireweed is fading.
