Lighthouse caretaking

What is a vacation from vacations?

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Work! I have to confess I complained a little to Tim about all this travel and packing. We’ve been home from Alaska for 6 weeks and during that time, I’ve taken 4 trips, all of which required some degree of planning. And here we go again.

I had a chance to discuss my fiber planning and travels with Kelley Petkun on the Knitpicks podcast last week. You can find the episode here

This weekend, I’m getting ready to head to Seguin Island again.

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Friends stay at our house and watch the cats, which is great, but I have to get the house ready. The fridge is almost empty, a little prematurely.

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We’ve taken our last sail on Boreas for the season.

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I’ve been trying to spin an hour a day. Here is some alpaca fiber I am spinning straight from the locks.

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Yesterday, I wound several skeins of my handspun, wool-mohair blend for socks and kool aid dyed corriedale for a child’s hat.

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My clothes are packed, I’ll spend some time working on projects I am leaving behind today and, oh yes, plan our food. Tomorrow I take a vacation from vacation before my next vacation.

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Off island

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Back on the mainland of the Alaskan panhandle. Yesterday began with a whale just next to the island.
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We were picked up and got to watch long lines of halibut (and lots of starfish) brought on board.

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This starfish was sort of creepy and only a few inches.

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After the fish was prepared and iced, we steamed north to Juneau and passed six rainbows!

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All in all, a beautiful trip. This morning began with a four am alarm and our journey home will end three pm tomorrow: twelve hours today (cheap flights, too many connections) an overnight in Manhattan (island to island travel) and a six hour train home. Phew.

Doing the happy dance

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Me and the whales.  They do it just  because they can, I do it because we are getting ready to head home.

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Today is our last full day on the island and it looks like it will be a beauty.  There’s not much packing up to do because others will stay here after we leave.  Our food held out and I’ve been foraging a little on the island.  Just a little because the plant books say you can eat one plant but be careful because there’s a poisonous plant which looks just like it.  Thimble berries are in season and taste sort of like a raspberry but not as sweet.

I’ve feasted on salmon for weeks.  Tim wrinkles his nose.

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We’ve had pizzas, bagels, apple pies, custards and all sorts of goodies and unfortunately the hula hooping wasn’t as much of a success as I had hoped.  I ran around the heliport once or twice but it was a tight circle.  The best exercise is climbing up the tower steps, 75 or so. So one of the things I’m looking forward to when I get home is stretching my legs and going for a run.   Also to sleep in my own bed.

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I’ve had a bunk bed all month, and a low one to boot.  If I sit up too quickly I bang my head.  And when I get out of bed, I have to arch my back in such a way that I don’t hit the bunk above me, which is thankfully unoccupied.  Just as well because the upper bunk acts as my spider shield.  Spiders hang out on the ceiling. I have had a chance to remember how much I love my sleeping bag. (notice how I roll it up each morning to prevent spiders from entering it when my back is turned).  I’m also looking forward to dry dishes.  Everything is so damp here, when I sniffed the bouquet of my first glass of wine, I was mildly nauseated.  We’ve been out of wine for a while but I still sniff the plates and mugs.  Not a nice habit.

Otherwise, the quarters are very comfortable.

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It really has all the comforts.  But there’s no place like home.

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Another whale of a day

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Ho hum.  Tim has told me he is tired of my unending good humor.  But he’s not seeing straight.

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The whale songs began the moment I woke up ( notice I don’t say at dawn, when they probably did) and continued all day.  It was impossible to get anything done because there would be more action somewhere around the island.

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They were swimming, sleeping, playing and feeding, solo, in pairs or in groups of up to ten.  What fun.  Noise and blow spouts all around us.  The otter swam peacefully by as well and I found the fledgling eagle.  I heard him clumsily clamber up a rock when I found my own perch on the heliport.  He sat there for an hour and wasn’t disturbed by me, whale activity, other birds or salmon leaping right in front of him.  When he looked like he was about to take off, I began shooting video only to catch him dropping a load.  Sweet.  But a boat of visitors from one of the local fishing lodges stopped by and they got to see him fly off to the little rock offshore the older eagles have occupied since we have been here, and probably for all time.

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Any dreams of returning to one of those rustic lodges were shattered when we saw the rates.  Oh my!

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After our visitors left, the last of the whales swam off into the sunset.

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Whale watching

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The strangest thing about being in this lighthouse is most of the creatures around us breathe above water.  Other places fish swim and we never know they are out there.  Here they sigh all day: whales, seals, sea lions, otters, and orcas.  We can hear whales breaching and splashing 10 miles away but the audio video isn’t aligned.  First there is a big splash off in the distance and then ten seconds later we hear it.  Go figure.  Yesterday morning was windy so there was no audio but lots of  visuals.  There was a pod of whales heading north, which stalled offshore the island.  There were at least six breath bursts in a line while some whales dove.

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Later in the day, the wind settled down and a whale came right by the edge of the island and the water was so clear, its fins were visible underwater.

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I went to sit on the new bench on the south end of the island and on my way back, thought I saw a chicken in the tree.  A chicken in the tree?  Why would it be sitting right next to the eagle’s nest?  Because it wasn’t a chicken, it was a young eagle, one of two fledglings we saw for the first time.  They weren’t impressed by our presence at all.

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Tonight, while we were eating dinner outside, a fledgling took its maiden flight accompanied by an adult bald eagle.  The adult landed on its usual offshore perch, but we never saw where the young one ended.  I’m sure I heard it whining though.

Last night I finally got to stargaze because the days are getting shorter, only 15 hours now and the sky is clear.  The sun rises at 5:15 am and sets at 8:44.  I managed to get out in the dark for one of the few times and was greeted by the big dipper low in the sky to the north.  No wonder it is the symbol on the Alaskan flag.  I also got to see the lighthouse functioning as it should.

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Today brought all sorts of whale hi jinx.  They were breaching all over the place but none too close to the island.  One pair seemed to be sleeping for a while because they weren’t really moving and they rose and fell with their breaths.  Then when they woke up, the games began.

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A good time was had by all.

 

 

Small projects

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We had a day on our own before an unexpected visitor arrived for an overnight stay before he was picked up by tender to be a naturalist advisor for a BBC documentary. Never a dull moment on a remote island.

Here’s yesterday’s radar image:

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This morning brought a quiet fog with lots of whale sounds around us. I couldn’t see them but heard them all around us. I may upload an audio recording if I can figure it out.

I found this landscape on the windowsill.

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I’ve been playing around with knots and may have gotten carried away.

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My leftover sock yarn blanket is moving along. It’s simple knitting and since we have internet we can stream videos. Sherlock, a modern BBC remake has caught our attention.

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Here’s an unedited video. The sound isn’t great but any breaths are not mine or Tim’s and I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones here at the moment.

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Wild life

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Whale activity ebbs and flows, not predictably with the tide or weather.  There were a lot of passersby today.

By some miracle, the internet turned on and I may be able to upload pictures.

We’ve had whale breaches, breaths and dives.  Ravens and crows yell all day, black turnstones circumnavigate the island in a flock and harlequin ducks float off the south end of the island.

We’ve been busy with houseguests and projects but are once again the only human inhabitants on the island.

Visitors arrived by landing craft, tour boats, helicopter, schooners, kayaks and a rowing dory. Time to take a breath myself.

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Goodbye sun

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We knew it was too good to be true when we were welcomed to Southeast Alaska with warm, sunny days. Now she’s showing her true colors. Cloudy, rainy and cool. Back to wool clothing for me.

I spent the day watching and photographing pigeon guillemots, a harlequin duck and a flock of black turnstones with my real camera. Since my only internet connection is via my iPhone, they will have to wait until I get home. We watched a whale play with a boat for about a half hour yesterday. I had binoculars but no camera. I hope to get a few good shots while we are here.

Traffic

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Boats to the east of us travel south through the Wrangell Narrows, which can only accommodate “smaller” boats like the ferries and fishing boats. Cruise ships enter Frederick Sound (our summer home) from the west from the Gulf of Alaska. Cruise ships to the left, ferries to the right, here I am stuck in the middle…

I spent a half hour tonight watching a whale slowly cruise by, taking snorkel breaths, diving and flapping a flipper. A sea lion was hanging out on the other side and the eagles were fishing. Somebody pinch me!

The keeper’s quarters are tidy and bleach has obliterated my sense of smell. The countertop convection oven has produced an apple pie, pizza, kale chips, bread and brownies with a little help from me.

It’s still light out when I crawl into my sleeping bag anywhere between 9 and 10 pm. Ambient light makes it easy to read five pages before crashing.