It’s mid-May, and today the temperature never quite hit 50. Add some on-and-off rain all day and it was pretty raw and chilly to be outside, trying to enjoy the Little Norway Festival. Where is spring?? Will we have a summer? Last year it was cold and rainy all summer… and we don’t want a repeat of that!!
We had a 12 day stretch of glorious weather in mid-April – oh, we all thought Spring had well and truly sprung and we could start working on the boat. Job one was to scrub all the green from the outside of the boat that accumulated over the wet, soggy winter. It took three days of scrubbing to get ADVENTURES clean, and many of the boats in the harbor were starting to look pretty spiffy as well.
The promise of spring spurred a lot of action on the docks, with people loading up their toys to transport to their summer cabins.
Look at those blue skies!! With long days (15-16 hours of daylight) and sunshine the whole town launched into a frenzy of activity, unleashing all that pent-up energy from the long dark winter. In the end, I was sort-of glad to see the rain return just so we could rest a little.
In the meantime, we received the very happy news that we won permits in the state lottery for the McNeil River Bear Sanctuary near Homer, Alaska. Those permits are very hard to come by, and we won the first time we tried! We’ll join 8 other people for four days of up-close-and-personal time with brown bears. Really close. McNeil has the largest seasonal concentration of brown bears in the world.
The challenge of McNeil is that there’s nothing there except a little cook cabin and a couple of outhouses. We’ve borrowed a sturdy tent from friends, and we did some experimenting with freeze-dried food to keep things simple and lightweight. Note the expiration date. Actually, the food we tested was much better than we expected, so we ordered a variety of meals for dinners. We’re very weight-restricted for the float plane trip over to McNeil, so every little bit counts.
Jim checked out our old camping pads and some newer sleeping bags, and they should keep us warm enough in the exposed coastal delta at McNeil.
We’re pretty excited for the McNeil adventure, and I can promise that I will bore you with oodles of bear photos when the time comes.
Before we hang out with the bears, it’s time for a shakedown cruise to test the boat’s systems. We had two sets of friends hauling their boats out in the boatyard in Wrangell – the next island town about 40 miles from here. We decided to cruise down there to give them a hand with a few projects, and just to spend some time with them. The boatyard is a fascinating place, with a few pleasure boats and lots of fishing boats – big and small. Other Petersburg friends were there with their fishing tender – the MATILDA BAY – 180 tons of steel, seen below being picked up by the 300-ton travel lift. Yowza!
The propeller on MATILDA BAY weighs 850 lbs, and they had sent it down to Seattle to be re-worked. It was a happy day for her owner Sherry when it arrived on the barge, looking all shiny and new.
The excitement happened when the yard started to put the prop back on the boat, and as they maneuvered it into position the sling slipped off the forklift. 850 lbs. came crashing down, slicing owner Kurt’s sock and shoe, and shaving a little sliver of skin from his ankle. It could have easily sliced off his foot. The bad news is that one blade was bent, but he was able to heat the tip and bang it back to true. You have to pay attention in the yard!
It was a wet, cold week in the yard, but we got a lot accomplished and had fun spending time with our friends. Cinco de Mayo occurred on the only dry day of the week, so we postponed our party to the following evening. Knut made margaritas…
…and it didn’t take long for us to inhale good food and nod off on the sofa.
We completed our busy spring with a Field Day for Fish & Game’s basic gun safety program. We enjoy target shooting, and I’ve found that it has improved my telephoto photography. It was a cold day at the range, but our local State Trooper, Forest Service and Fish & Game folks put on a superb class.
So it has been a very busy “spring” and now we’re itching to get back out on the water for the summer… rain or no rain!
I’m so jealous of your bear trip and can’t wait to see all the photos! Have a great summer! We’re getting our boat ready to sell, a boat is not meant to sit! I will live through your blogs!