My world at Five Finger Lighthouse as seen from the helipad – the place to be to see whales, porpoises, visitors and to get cell phone reception.
I took this photo while on hold with ATT for an hour trying to straighten out the internet. Never happened so I write this from the lighthouse tower!
Lovely! We’re busy cleaning and mowing but are also enjoying the gorgeous sights. We share the island with a pair of eagles while whales and sea lions swim right offshore.
We took a three hour tour to the lighthouse and saw eagles, whales, sea lions and icebergs. We went up to this one to attempt to get some ice. Boys will be boys.
Internet is sketchy at the moment and I write this from the lantern room and it looks like I can only add one photo. More to follow. Time for bed.
Is anybody out there? We’re listening.
Beautiful fireweeds grow, well, like weeds.
We watched ginormous cruise ships dock and caught a glimpse of Mendenhall glacier from a city bus. Juneau is a city filled with cars with no place to go. I almost forgot the best part. There’s a fabric and yarn store just across the street from our hotel.
Tonight we’re off to the Alaska brewing company and king crab. Tomorrow is the big day; shop, load, a 60 mile boat ride, unload, put away, clean and crash.
Taking my time. Wrote it out on the back of an airline napkin and will shop tomorrow. Seven hours to NYC yesterday. Today 2/3 flights done; 10 hours, 5 to go.
Direct flights next time but I have had plenty of time to think! And plan.
I pulled two almost all-nighters and they had nothing to do with packing for our trip to Alaska. I accomplished that in three hours; one backpack for me and a carry-on bag for my projects – camera, quilt hoop and yarn. My hula hoop and jump rope fit in the backpack.
My foul weather gear takes up most of my clothing space. No fashion show here. We learned this week that 1) noone has been to the lighthouse yet this year (I hear, “expect dirt and critters”); 2) the “big” boat won’t be ready for our 60 mile trip along the inside passage so we’ll take the tender (hence the full foulies); 3) oh yes, and the ramp is out so we’ll dingy our stuff ashore (hence the need for rubber boots). Yet I’m psyched.
Tim found this great slide show to put me in the mood, put together by an artist in residence a few years ago. You can find it here.
I lost sleep due to self imposed deadlines. I had to weave several placemats to complete a set I made for my daughter and I did – in 24 hours! The first part of the set only contained three placemats due to warping mishaps. Now she has a complete set of eight and she will know how much I love her.
Then I had to finish a quilt to for my son since I will be away for his birthday. So I had to finish it six weeks early. I’m a crazy woman but I did it. 3072!! That’s the estimated number of stitches I sewed to finish the binding. The quilt is 96″ x 96″ so the circumference is 384″ with about 8 stitches per inch for a total of 3072 at the rate of about 500 stitches per hour or 8 stitches per minute. I must be slow and crazy.
Pièce de résistance is the quilt label. I used my phone to generate a QR Code, which I printed onto fabric and sewed to the back of the quilt.
It’s a private message so I’m only showing an unfocused photo. I wonder if there will still be QR scanners a hundred years from now.
He’ll have it for his birthday and know how much I love him.
Now to catch up on sleep so I can plan my food shopping for a month.
Really. Halcyon Yarn is located in Bath, ME. I’ve stopped in once or twice and they have a wonderful weaving section plus knitting, spinning, the works.
Last year, a few weeks before we arrived to help close Seguin Island Lighthouse, Halcyon Yarn went out to the Island for a photo shoot – without ME!
Whatever, I’m over it. I encourage you to get a copy of the current catalog. It’s a lovely display of fiber projects in a beautiful setting. They have even devoted a line of knit, woven and hooked projects to Seguin.
But I digress. Back to MY geraniums. As we closed up last year, I found two potted geraniums under the porch. They had been in outdoor planters that brightened the entry during the season and were now discarded. I was determined to bring them home, by dinghy, the Leeward and car to nurture them over the winter. And they flourished.
Here they are featured on the back cover of the catalog from last season on Seguin.
And here they are brightening my dining area today.
A convergence of passions: Seguin and fiber – and pretty flowers.
Our departure is a month away and our thoughts point west to Alaska. I was googling Five Finger Lighthouse and came across this link about our temporary home.
Just when I have embarked on a regular running regimen, we head out to a three acre island. Three acres! 130,680 square feet or 361.5 x 361.5 feet! Oh my. That’s a lot of laps – 3.6 laps to run one mile. Luckily the island’s size doubles at low tide. I’ll have to watch out for slippery rocks.
We’ve asked the three most important questions: Is there internet service; is there cell phone service; and is there hot water? Happily, the answers are yes, yes and yes. There aren’t mosquitos or gnats but spiders were mentioned twice. Can’t be as bad as Australia’s huntsmen spiders. I hope.
We will miss prime boating season on Lake Champlain so yesterday we boarded our sailboat, Boreas, and headed up the Otter Creek in grey, misty weather to Vergennes, VT. We only hit one log in the water but this one is waiting to make the dive over the falls!
We could hear the falls before we saw them and I’m glad we approached from the downside.
Very dramatic.
I manage to live and work very close to helipads. They aren’t used often but when they are it’s an event.
On Seguin Island, the bricks marking the helipad, which is still used, were unearthed a couple of years ago. We keep the are cleared and mowed.
The pad is very close to the lighthouse and after a warning buzz, no phone calls here, it sets down on the pad.
It’s a different story at work, where I have participated in helicopter landings twice. By “participate” I mean move my car from the parking lot, which also serves as the helipad.
An announcement comes over the intercom that a helicopter is landing and immediately, the workforce and visitors grab their keys and head out the doors to move their cars. At least here we get a phone call so its not really a scramble.
I just have to remember where I parked my car at the end of the day.
The real focus is Seguin Island Lighthouse and Life as a Remote Island Lighthouse Caretaker. There was a video filmed on that hectic day when the work party came to work on windows and help close up. You can see the video here.
However during the video I managed to wear threefour of my handknit items. It was very cold and damp on the day of the taping, so I wore a handspun headband made with yarn spun by a friend of mine who took care of my wheel when I was living in Australia for five months.
The project information is here.
There’s a very brief glimpse of my fingerless gloves when we haul the dinghy up the beach.
Their project info is here. They are very special because the fiber was gifted to me by a new friend in Tasmania and I spun (on a turkish drop spindle) and knit them during my 3 months on Deal Island, Tasmania in 2010/2011.
At the end (and the beginning but it’s hidden under another layer) is my first sweater, an Aran pullover made, too small, for Tim, so it is mine.
Pattern info is here.
What you can’t see are my hand knit socks. I think I actually wore two pair because my feet got wet in the morning. At least one pair were these, knit on Seguin Island in 2008.
So there’s a hidden story to life on remote islands as well.
Island and North Country Life 