We'd been hitting it pretty hard, out every weekend since early July--twice to Snettisham and twice boat camping.  But, rather than lying around the house, as I expected I'd want to do, lounging around Snettisham sounded even better, and that's what we did.  The weather had turned lovely late in the week and the forecast called for light winds and sunny skies, with a high on Saturday of 81 degrees.  Chris and I took off work a couple of hours early, packed and loaded the truck, then stopped by Home Depot on the way to the harbor to pick up 2x6s for decking on the impending triangular deck extension.  The day before I'd stopped by Taku Fisheries for more ice in the hopes of a repeat late-run victory at Sweetheart Creek, so it took a few trips to load the boat.  The high tide helped, plus I brought the skiff around under the ramp to halve the distance while Chris brought most of the lumber down.  The ride south was extremely pleasant, the water calm, the sun warm.  Chris discovered that the 2x6s, stacked in the center of the boat and leaned up against the back bench seat (they were short enough that they didn't need to extend through the console), made a surprisingly comfy place to lie down.  I didn't quite believe him until he ousted me from my seat around Limestone Inlet and had me try it.  Laying there zooming along with the sun on my face was wonderful.  It was probably the most pleasant ride down I've had all summer, and we celebrated with two tall boy PBRs each.  We passed five whales from the Limestone area into Snettisham.

Once at the homestead we loaded everything up onto the deck, then I anchored the boat in deep water (anticipating a Sweetheart departure at low tide at some point over the weekend).  We feasted on Subway sandwiches and wine, lit a tiny fire (the sun was behind the mountain by the time we arrived), and finished the enormous bottle of Kirkland vodka that has lived in the lodge for years.  I think I fell into a sweet sleep on the couch at around 10:00.  At 11:15 I woke up, brushed my teeth, and roused Chris from the couch.  It was meteor time!  The height of the Perseid meteor shower was the night before, but it was supposed to last for some days on either side.  The Perseids is an annual event that occurs when the earth passes through the debris left by the Swift-Tuttle comet; unfortunately for star gazers, August tends to be overcast and rainy in Southeast Alaska.  But not this time!  Chris and I laid down on a quilt and a couple of pillows and stared up at the Milky Way, unhindered by light pollution of any kind (it was even close to a new moon).  I'd checked a start chart for the night and figured out where the Perseus constellation would be (which is where the shower is centered), but looking in that direction would have involved walking down towards the water (Perseus was upriver and blocked by trees from our vantage on the deck).  I opted to stay put, and I never did notice a concentration of meteors in any one place.  We laid there for about 25 minutes and saw, on average, about a meteor a minute, though not evenly spaced.  Some of them were tiny and brief, others blazed across the sky, the dazzling tail lasting for a split second longer.  It was wonderful--I haven't seen a meteor shower since I was a kid at the lodge.

We went to bed around midnight and......I slept in for the first time in over a month.  It was awfully nice, but the blue sky and sunshine (peeking in through the forest) eventually drew us out of bed and onto the deck.  It wasn't long before were scantily clad in the glowing sunshine.  We sat in lawn chairs completely relaxed, taking it all in, while Nigel enjoyed laying on the upper deck where I'd left the rug from Hermit Thrush out to dry on our last trip.  I was on the alert for critters and, turning around to investigate a small noise behind me, saw a red-backed vole meandering around the wood pile.  Chris caught a glimpse of him as well before he disappeared inside.  I wasn't able to capture a photo, but half an hour later he was back, this time apparently for a nap.  He found little shelves of wood in the sunshine and appeared to doze off for periods of time before changing positions.  Eventually I started to work my way ever so slowly toward him, without seeming to disturb him at all!  Finally, I couldn't resist it any longer and reached out to pet him gently on his rump.  He wandered inside the wood pile after that, only to return a few minutes later to the sunshine.  A little later Chris crept up on him and petted him twice, apparently without bothering the little vole at all (whom we named Oliver).  In the early afternoon I made quesadillas for lunch and we put out bits of cheese for him, but he was gone and never returned for them while we were there.

Around 3:00 or so we watched the fourth boat leave Sweetheart Creek and decided to give it a try at the end of the rising tide.  This same weekend the year before we'd caught eight sockeyes along with hundreds of pinks and had the creek to ourselves, and hoped to repeat the experience.  When I got to the boat I prompted the bilge pump to turn on and noticed that the hose was leaking a little back into the boat.  I dropped the engine into the water, concerned that it sounded weak (paranoia about the bilge pump system draining the battery I think).  I turned the engine over without pumping up the fuel hose, to no avail, so I hastily pumped it many times and tried again.  Normally, the pump on the hose gets hard when the system is full of gas; however, I've noted that in hot weather, that is often not the case, but gas is still flowing through.  So I wasn't surprised when the bulb would not harden.  However, try as I might, the engine would not catch and I was concerned that my battery was dying.  I thought maybe the hose would work better with a full fuel tank, so I filled up the main tank with 10 gallons of gas and tried that; still it wouldn't harden and the engine wouldn't start.  I didn't think the battery would have enough power to continually try to start the engine without having enough power to actually do it, but I wasn't sure.  And maybe it sounded different than usual?  But if there was enough power, which there seemed to be, then it must be lack of fuel.  I was already pretty devastated--so much for having what was, up until then, a perfect day.

I started up the kicker and came to shore to solicit Chris's help.  It's good to have someone to talk situations and theories with, even if they don't have any more expertise.  We started experimenting with the hose to see if we could determine whether it was delivering gas to the engine.  We disconnected it from the gas tank and pumped the bulb, but it really did not appear to be sucking anything in.  I pulled out my spare hose and we tried to compare it, but the spare hose has a fitting on both ends, so you can't pump it unless it's attached to something.  So, we decided we'd try hooking it up to the engine.  I hadn't wanted to do this, as it was extremely hard to attach the new fitting on the hose to the engine last spring (my mother and I spent an hour at it and wound up disconnecting the whole system from the engine to get it to work).  I'd vowed not to take it off unless I absolutely had to.  But, with no evidence that the existing hose was offering fuel to the engine, it seemed like the right move.  My experience last spring served me well.  After a few unsuccessful attempts to force the new hose's fitting onto the engine's fitting, we gave up and started dismantling it, first disconnecting the internal fuel hose from the engine, then unscrewing the fitting from its housing and pulling the whole thing out in the open.  I wore my waders and worked from the water while Chris worked from the boat.  He quickly managed to connect it and we put the whole thing back together (it was a lot easier the second time).  With the hose attached to the fuel tank, we started pumping and the bulb quickly got hard.  Okay.  So we had gas.  We kickered out into deeper water and I tried starting the engine as usual, with full choke to make sure it got gas.  No luck.  Dejected, we headed toward what we thought was a boat at anchor on the other side of Gilbert Bay and Sweetheart Creek where we hoped to ask for assistance.  At least then we could get a jump (I had cables in the boat) since we clearly now had fuel.  On the way over we started talking about the possibility of having flooded the engine and discussed what each of us knew about that phenomenon.  I decided to let the engine rest and then try to start it (without choke) when we rounded the point into Gilbert Bay.  We made it there in half an hour.  I put the kicker in neutral and gently turned the key.  One second....two seconds....three seconds....four seconds....and a gentle brumble emanated from behind me.  The engine had started!  I asked Chris to shut down the kicker, then we went for a joy ride over toward the Speel Arm to make sure the battery was charged up.  At the time I'm writing this, we're still not sure whether the original hose system was working or not.  If it was, then I probably flooded the engine when I was first trying to start it.  If not, then we flooded it trying to start it after attaching the new hose.  Either way, a good rest and lack of choke is apparently what it needed.  Thank goodness.

Whale on the way down	Sunny day!	Oliver the vole
Oliver's nose	Chris petting Oliver	Decking it

By that time it was 5:00 and high tide but we decided to give Sweetheart Creek a try anyway.  There were two boats at anchor; one couple was headed out as we came in and we passed another group on their way out at the bottom of the creek.  The tide was so high that we couldn't walk along the edge of the creek like we usually do for much of the distance and had to work our way on the mucky paths through the woods.  When we reached the point, we were alone....with the exception of a brown bear mother and two adorable young cubs at the falls just up the creek, about 30 feet away.  She stood at the edge of the rocks panting in the heat (looking a lot like Nigel) while her two cubs sat snuggled beside her and a fish.  She looked uncomfortably hot.  The creek in front of us was alive with pink salmon, everywhere we looked, thousands of them.  We started casting and pulled in bunches of them; interestingly, after several casts into the main pool above us, they'd clear out for a few minutes, but would soon repopulate it.  After about ten minutes the bears disappeared, only to show up on our own point a little downcreek of us where an offshoot of the main creek sweeps along the edge of the rocks.  It becomes relatively shallow there and some logs and sticks had formed a little dam.  Mama bear found a dead fish stuck there and munched on it along with one of her little ones.  One of the cubs found another fish (comically large compared to his small size) and managed to carry it back to shore too.  As these bears were only 20-25 feet from us, we took turns bear watching while the other cast.  Chris was fishing when I happened to glance up to the top of the point (about ten feet up and 20 feet away) to spot another brown bear moseying across the mound.  Mama bear wasn't having any of that; I didn't see what happened exactly, but I heard her and saw this bear bolt away (thankfully in the opposite direction of us).  Mama bear and cubs hung around for a few more minutes, then disappeared.  Shortly thereafter, a solo bear (maybe the same one) showed up downcreek on the flat rocks that separate the main stem from the offshoot channel.  This bear was totally nonchalant.  He would stroll calmly into the creek, duck his head underwater, pull up a salmon, eat a few bites on shore, then head back into the creek for another salmon.  We saw him catch five or six fish this way (most of which appeared to be dead when he caught them).  He was pretty amusing when he swam, only a mound of golden fur and his ears protruding from the water.  Less amusing were the times when he waded in our direction, quickly halving the distance between us.  We yelled and tried to look big and menacing, but the bear was completely unmoved by our antics.  He knew we were there, but was so unconcerned that I was worried he might feel perfectly comfortable wading over to our point.  Whenever he came toward us we stopped fishing and stood with bear mace, ready to retreat up the rocks if necessary.  Of course he always eventually turned around and went back to his rock, but it didn't help our fishing productivity!

All the while we're catching net full after net full of pink salmon with no sign of sockeyes.  There were quite a few fin clippings on the point, which suggested that someone had been snipping sockeye tails, but whatever they were doing right we weren't.  There were so many pinks on the surface that the net was full before it sank more than a foot beneath.  But, we didn't have high expectations, so we weren't too disappointed.  The bear action was amazing, the day was wonderful, and my boat was working.  After a couple of hours we decided to take off.  The solo bear was gone, but we had seen two or three bears appear in the woods on the point downriver briefly and there was more aggressive behavior.  This time we saw one of the bears trotting purposefully through the trees, which was an impressive site.  I've seen lots of bears run (bolt) and I've seen lots of bears stroll, but I'd never seen a bear move fast with aggression.  We guessed it was a mother with cubs.  I certainly would not want to be on the other side of that trot!  No bears were in sight as we walked downcreek, but we talked loudly all the way, emphasizing that we'd taken no fish from their stream.  When we dropped down from the last point over the lowest pool we looked down where the creek becomes shallow and saw FIVE bears in the creek.  It turned out to be a mother, who soon disappeared in the tall grass on the flats bordering the stream, and four cubs.  Four!  And they were yearling cubs!!  They splashed around in the water for a while, some of them standing up on their back legs to look for mom.  We watched them slowly follow her into the grass.  That brought the count to at least nine bears! 

When we got back to the beach, Gilbert Bay was glassy calm and lovely in the evening light.  We kayaked out together to the boat (flooding the seat with water from the added weight, since I've lost yet another scupper plug).  The engine started without a hitch and we tried to console ourselves with the fact that we didn't have any fish to process.  Back at the homestead (a ten minute boat ride) I anchored the boat a little closer in and made pasta for dinner.

Mama bear and two cubs panting	Mama eating salmon on the dam	Mama bear and cub eating
Brown bear fishing (photo by Chris)	Fishing (photo by Chris)	Fishing (photo by Chris)
Heading in our direction now... (photo by Chris)	Now about 20 feet away! (photo by Chris)	Debbie and the bear getting ready to fish
Four yearling cubs in the bottom of the creek	One cub standing to look for mom	Glassy calm Gilbert Bay

The flawless blue sky in the morning was dulled somewhat by a haze--we guessed that smoke from fires in the Yukon had made their way to the coast.  The day was utterly still....and consequently quite relaxing.  We didn't sleep in as much, but got busy right away with serious deck cruising.  It really felt like a vacation, could easily have been a remote cabin in Mexico; I wore shorts and a bikini top all day (or less) and was perfectly comfortable, and the sunscreen we wore didn't hurt the tropical vacation illusion either.  Everything was stationary and quiet.  I played a few games of solitaire laying on my belly on a quilt in the sunshine--and won!  Then, as we approached low tide late in the morning, I put on sandals and walked down toward the boat, which was floating about 20 feet from the edge of the mud flats.  The day before we'd put two beers in the cast net bucket to carry them back from Sweetheart Creek and had neglected to put them back on ice when we returned!  As we were reaching the end of our beer supply and had a sunny boat ride to look forward to, I decided to remedy the situation.  As usual, the boat was floating near the outlet to a stream snaking through the mud, and I didn't know which side of it would be shallow and which would find me in a channel (streams make surprisingly deep pockets in otherwise shallow water).  I first tried toward the bow of the boat and quickly began sliding dangerously deep; then I crossed the creek and tried toward the stern and managed to wade out into thigh deep water, quickly putting the beers in the cooler.  On my way down I'd discarded my sandals (which were sticking ferociously in the mud) and found that walking barefoot in the glacial silt felt wonderful.  All morning I'd been thinking I should do my monthly COASST survey, but couldn't muster any enthusiasm.  Once I started walking barefoot it sounded much more enticing!

Chris joined me for the tramp, and what has probably been the most enjoyable COASST survey this summer.  I've come to grimly anticipate the labored walking over mud and slippery rocks (though I otherwise enjoy the survey); this made the whole tramp pleasant.  Nigel came along as well.  He lingered behind as we approached the turnaround spot at the grassy point upriver and we met back up with him to find that he had sneakily discovered half of a pink salmon and was enjoying a nibble.  Thankfully it wasn't putrid enough to roll in, and I let him enjoy the flavor a little before calling him away.  The black flies that had harassed us all weekend kept pace, and Chris was expert at karate chopping them out of the air.  Back past the lodge we approached the eagle's nest and I thought I spotted Jerome, the eaglet, sitting on the edge of the nest against the dark background of the tree trunk.  I took several photos, but the figure never moved and I started to doubt myself.  I finally walked directly under the nest and looked up to see Jerome looking down on me--it was definitely him!  A little hard to photograph, but you can make him out.  As we were walking back I started talking to Chris about making a video of the homestead in one continuous shot to give people a virtual tour.  He volunteered his camera (which takes much better video than mine), and I was soon shooting.  The shot started in the meadow in front of the lodge, went up onto the lodge porch, through the lodge, up to the outhouse, up the path to the water source, back down to the lodge, over the boardwalk to Cottonwood, then Mink, then Harbor Seal Cabins, then to the creek, then to Hermit Thrush, the other outhouse, and back past Cottonwood to the lodge.  I haven't edited it yet!  We were also lucky enough that afternoon to have a brief encounter with a mink, who took the normal mink trail from the downriver side of the new deck, under the deck, and off upriver, with a little detour in front of the deck to stand up and check us out before continuing on his way.

After lunch I did a few errands, sweeping out my cabin and returning its rug and pulling the tape and newspapers from the windows of all the cabins (leftover from staining); on the way back, I took some photos of the cabins in the sunshine.  I also wanted to get working on the extension of the deck that will connect the two corners on the upriver side and make a triangular section to fill in the gap.  I laid some boards down and estimated the angle I'd need to bevel their ends to abut the edges of the existing deck, but did so inaccurately so I had to cut them more than once.  In the end, my original plan turned out to be a failure and I've since developed a better plan with the assistance of the carpenter who built the lodge.  In the meantime, my experimenting means that I've progressed a little bit with a new plan.  Unfortunately, the day was getting on and we had to look at packing up.  Fortunately, there was every indication that the trip back would be gorgeous and calm.  We were not disappointed.  The hazy stillness hovered over the entrance to the Port and Stephen's Passage.  We passed four single whales in the Port, their blows lingering in the still air.  As we turned the corner and headed toward the Seal Rocks, two whales came up, then another, and another, and another!  Five whales all together!  This is not big news if you're at Point Adolphus or looking for bubble netters in Lynn Canal, but I've never seen more than two whales together, maybe three, between Snettisham and Juneau!  Five!  What were they doing!?

We watched them sound, then hung around in the area for a while (I had to see more and verify my count).  A few minutes later they came up about 100 feet away, all five of them, but one immediately took off in another direction and left the group.  The other four stayed together for several more breathing cycles, fluking beautifully.  The sun was so bright and the water so glary that I couldn’t tell what my camera was picking up, so photos leave something to be desired.  We eventually left the group and continued north, passing two more whales on the way (bringing the count to 11).  It was a marvelous, relaxing, wonderful sunny weekend.

Sliding on the silt	Jerome looking down at me	Hermit Thrush
Two of the five whales	Whales	Nigel eagerly anticipating the dock