Protection Island, WA

Once again the universe delivers

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I’m an eternal optimist, perhaps bordering on pollyanna-ish. But in my experience if you expect good things, good things happen. Perhaps it’s just about being open. What follows is a very small example, but I assure you I have had bigger examples as well, it happens all the time.

We received some food, including a jar of apricot jam, when our research neighbor completed his work and left the island. Then I received an email,  with a recipe for Almond Puff Loaf, that needed jam(!) and sliced almonds, which I just happened to have on hand. Today I whipped up a loaf to have with coffee. It was simple, delicious and photogenic.

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And now for the birds. I saw this eagle join its buddy at the water’s edge. I’m not sure what they were investigating.

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We spotted these two eagles feeding on a seal when we went out in the boat the other day. A young eagle was off to the side and a third adult was waiting in the “wings”,

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This group seems pretty content. Who wouldn’t be with that view?

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This heron had a surprise visitor with ruffled feathers.

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The house that formerly stood here may have been a little too close to the bluff. This fence now stands at the edge of a 200 foot cliff.

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I liked this vanishing point.

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And that loon we saw the other day is no Common Loon. It’s a Yellow-Billed Loon, identified by people other than me who know. It’s relatively rare with less than 10,000 left in the world. And one is here in our little marina. Ah, the universe.

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Weaving memories

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Well I’ve done it – made a silk purse from a sow’s ear- and I’m delighted with it. Years ago, when we lived on Fire Island during the winter, I found an already broken down boat bag on the beach, buried in the sand. It’s small, has lots of pockets and has served me well over the years but is slowly disintegrating. The straps were frayed and there was a hole in it. So I decided to dress it up.

I wove two bands using pebble weave with a backstrap loom. There’s a clear progression from one strap to the next as I improved my technique. It’s all about the tension. Now I can even draft my own patterns.

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I even used my little 2″ pin loom to weave a square of fabric with the same cotton in the weaving to patch a hole.IMG_1563

OK that was over the top but it makes me smile. Now this bag will remind me of my time weaving on the porch, looking out over the water with gulls flying overhead, and make me smile.

Then I got into some marlinspike seamanship. Except I used a pencil instead of a marlinspike. We needed to replace a fender on the boat. They are used to reduce the impact when the captain doesn’t dock as well as, ahem, (s)he would have liked and as a result the fender “popped”, or sacrificed itself for the boat. No harm done, except for my bruised ego. I found another fender on the boat and wove an eye splice into a line to permanently attach it.

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I use the app, Grog’s Knots, for boating knots and mats. Another outlet for weaving using ropes as the substrate.

My favorite birds to date are the Pigeon Guillemots. Just look at these two with their red legs. They are not at all graceful and land on the water or land with a distinct plop. But so cute.

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The Northern Harriers are not my favorite because I think they have it out for me. They fly overhead, chirp and buzz me.  They must have a nest near the cabin. Of course as I write this, an eagle just dove into the seagull colony causing them all, hundreds, to circle in a tizzy, so I shouldn’t feel too bad.

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It flies so close to me I should get good photos, although I may have a hardhat in my future.

I haven’t seen the great horned owls yet but they leave us presents most days. They feast on Rhinoceros auklets then leave the the heads and cleaned bones on our wood chopping stump. You can see why it’s called Rhinoceros.

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I used a different block to chop this kindling.

We find evidence all over the island of birds eating birds with scattered feathers and remains.  Earlier on, we saw some broken eggs but haven’t seen that recently.

As Tim likes to say, “It’s a jungle out there”.

After the rain

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IMG_0384IMG_0385Comes a rainbow. Something else to look at other than seagulls copulating on the front lawn. It rained for about a day and a half. I got to work weaving a replacement straps for my little boat bag, which is gradually disintegrating.

That jumble of sticks and strap combined with my body makes up the loom.  I control tension by leaning forward or back. It’s been a process learning this super portable way to weave.

I can understand why people who live where the weather is always nice grow bored with it. The clouds and sky were dramatic before and after the front passed through. We had hoped to get out to watch the Race to Alaska go by but it was raining and foggy. Check it out at here. It is a boat (loosely defined) race from Port Townsend, Washington to Ketchikan, Alaska, 750 miles. The main requirement is the boat cannot have a motor. There were canoes, kayaks, lots of trimarans and stand up paddle boards!! That’s right, SUP 750 miles, sometimes in open water.  Oh my. They left the harbor with large oars for power. The first day didn’t have much wind and the rowers did very well.  My favorite boat name is, “What the Fuca”. First prize $10,000, second prize, a set of steak knives! Gotta love it.

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And then the beautiful full moon rose. It was still light out at 10 pm. The whole gang was out to enjoy it. They took a break from their primary activity.

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But they are at it again this morning!

 

We get around

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IMG_1463Protection Island is only about 380 acres and the beaches are off limits during the summer due to nesting birds and seals. We try to walk as much as possible but sometimes we have too much to carry.  We mostly use a little S10 pickup truck that gets the job done.

Today we harvested 8 five gallon buckets of daffodil bulbs.  I may be broken but I took an aspirin and can’t tell.

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Yesterday I got to drive the Ranger to meet US Fish and Wildlife visitors at the marina.

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This morning we got to troubleshoot, and looks like we fixed, the 25 hp secondary motor on the boat.  We need it as a backup and it wasn’t running well. We checked and cleaned the spark plugs. A very useful tip I learned a few years ago is a credit card is 0.030 inches, which can be used to roughly check the gap on most spark plugs when you are on an island without an auto parts store nearby.  We checked the compression (look at us!) and tested to see if the motor was getting enough fuel by squeezing the bulb to see if it made a difference. Either the spark plugs were dirty or there was something that had to pass through the carburetor because we ran it at throttle and it purred. We’re back in business.

Rainy weather is coming so we may have to play indoors for a few days.

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Island rhythm

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A pair of caretakers we met in Tasmania said every day they tried to do something for themselves, something for the island and something physical.  They had a cute acronym I can’t remember, PIG (physical, island, growth); CrEW (create, exercise, work); CARE (create, activity, read, enhance; or caretake, activity, read, exercise).  You get the idea, something like that. We’ve found a pretty nice balance.

We have to clean the dock and boat every day, not as bad as it sounds.  It uses water pressure mostly and is fairly gratifying.  I proposed we sit and spray the seagulls before they even soil the dock instead but it’s probably frowned upon on at a bird refuge.

We keep the cabin tidy and mow the grass around buildings.

We worked as migrant labor for a few days and dug up 15 gallons of daffodil bulbs. No easy task in chest high grass. I’m only mildly broken.  Hope the sale goes well.

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Tim practices piano a couple of hours a day.  I knit, weave, bake, and read. I’ve completed two sweaters, one was basically done before we got here and has come in very handy.  We either wear long sleeve wool shirts or sleeveless shirts.  There doesn’t seem to be an in between.

I bake bread, pizza, pies and crisps.  Have to keep my partner happy.

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I usually weave a bit in the morning. I finished a belt, am trying to learn Andean pebble weave on a backstrap loom, and have some card weaving projects in mind.

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I knit up a bag to use on our bikes when we go shopping from leftover scraps.

IMG_1457Now I’m trying to finish a lace shawl I started in 2015 for my dear daughter. It may happen.

And I take pictures.

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The island and its inhabitants are very photogenic.

Hosts and hostees

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We had dear friends visit for a day. We met them on shore, and they whisked us off to Olympic National Park, where we took a nice walk above Lake Crescent. We ate some marvelous halibut at Cest si Bon near Port Angeles, slept in an Airbnb, shopped without having to schlepp our food on our bikes, and brought them out to the island. It was such an easy, relaxed visit. That is except for a little boating trouble. We returned to the boat to find some oil had leaked on the transom. Of course my first thought was, Oh no! I didn’t tighten the dipstick when I checked it, but phew, that was not the cause. We didn’t lose oil from the engine, noticed only a drop or two the next morning and may be able to call it OK? Plus when these troubles occurred, naturally, the second motor acted up and conked out. Boats! All’s well, we got a seal of approval from our trusty captain, Chris Columbus, no joke, and we’re good to go. We will have to test the kicker engine again though.

Then we were invited to explore Port Townsend, with Jim Hayward, who has spent more than 30 years here studying seagulls. Their behavior has changed for the worse in some ways – they eat their own –  with only minimal warming of the sea temperature.  And we just withdrew from the Paris Accord!! Thank you former Mayor Bloomberg for pledging to invest what our President would not, and to all the cities and states that intend to continue world conscious, climate practices despite the fact that the leader of the United States does not believe climate change exists. I think he may have even lied to the Pope.

So it has been a slow couple of days on the island.

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We saw lots of slugs on the mainland and found this one waiting for us at home.

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We have beautiful, perhaps invasive, poppies growing outside the cabin. We saw plenty in gardens in Port Townsend as well.

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To make us feel at home, there was even a seagull colony atop one of the buildings downtown.

The highlight of the day however was when the old Dodge truck, started up and tugged the van onto the ramp of the barge that took them away. I was a little slow on the trigger but caught the result.

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Today, we’re off to dig daffodils.

Worker bee

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That’s me. The daffodils we marked a couple of weeks ago with one foot tall flags are now surrounded by chest high grass. It makes finding them, surprisingly challenging. But I gathered a shovel and bucket and off I went to harvest daffodil bulbs to take off island to possibly sell as a fundraiser for the Friends group. I labored for a couple of hours and collected a bucket full of bulbs from about 25 plants.

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When I looked up from my work I saw a deer grazing nearby who couldn’t care less about me.

I finished knitting a sweater I made for myself that began in earnest on our plane ride on April 24.  I love it. I may get to wear it over the next couple of days when the weather will be wet and cool.

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The pattern was Ennis Pullover by Sarah Solomon and it was an interesting knit. Now on my needles is a mesh market bag so we can hold our food in a secure bag on the bike rack.

i wanted to clear out the refrigerator leftover sauce and cheese so made a delish pizza for lunch.

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And challenged myself to make a cake from scratch, without even a hand mixer or wooden spoon! We only have a large serving spoon that serves as a wooden spoon and a plastic whisk. But it worked.

We weren’t the only ones who ate well yesterday. This crab was on our porch when I must have interrupted a seagull’s feast.

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After my work was done, I took a walk and watched the eagles soar.

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The wind picked up and they were able to hang on the air.

 

 

 

A few bird shots and boating news

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I am trying to get better shots of the wildlife. We walked down to the marina and were greeted by this eagle along the cliffs.

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Harlequin ducks took off when we got to the dock.

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A lone loon has been hanging out in the harbor. We haven’t heard its call because it probably gets drowned out by all the squawking seagulls.

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We’ve seen a couple of tufted puffins on the water. So cute.

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Next week this relic of a truck is going to leave the island along with the van on the hill that serves as a blind for the researchers. They think the van has just enough brake fluid to make it down the hill to the marina one last time.

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But here’s the real news. I wanted to be able to dock the boat in the slip before the end of the May. I used to be a sailboat snob. Sailors need to know about the wind, currents and of course the rules of the road.  I thought power boaters just had to turn a key and needed no real knowledge of seamanship. But it’s all about the takeoff and landing. Maneuvering in open water is a piece of cake. Docking, not so much.

Last week, I spent a couple of hours practicing docking in our little marina; no other boats, no observers. Today I tried, for the third time, to dock at the marina on the mainland (whose name I will withhold) in a tiny little slip with a narrow approach. The first time, I somehow ended up perpendicular to the dock and had to turn the helm over to Tim. I was disheartened. That prompted me to invest in an online course on docking a single engine outboard. It seems I had it easy with a sailboat. We had a keel, a big rudder and an inboard engine. Make a turn and that’s the way the boat tracks. Powerboats slip sideways along the water and are not as straight forward. And of course neither have brakes.

I would dream about my approach to the slip when I slept. The second time, I allotted myself two tries. I missed the slip both times, but in a more controlled fashion. Today I was ready to give it two tries again. But I did it smoothly the first try!  I let out a whoop as Tim tied us to the dock. Well it must have been heard by our slip neighbor a few boats away because when I took the boat out later in the day, he and a friend applauded my seamanship! I have to remember everyone had to learn sometime.