It was Dave's last weekend in town and I'd heard rumors of early sockeyes returning to Juneau--result: a weekend at Snettisham with a stop by Sweetheart Creek in the hopes of beating the crowds to fish.  Chris and I swung by Taku Fisheries after lunch on Friday to fill a couple of coolers with ice in the hopes of packing them with our winter supply of sockeyes.  We all got off work a little early, managed to load the boat by 4:30, met up with Dru at the launch ramp, and were soon underway.  In the middle of Taku Inlet we stopped for a whale with lovely white patches on its flukes; I broke out my new portable timer device that my boss had found in a desk drawer and started timing dives--about 2.5 minutes between breathing cycles.  The timer worked beautifully and I was much better able to predict the whale's surfacing.  We stayed there for several breathing cycles, then headed south again, passing another whale between Grand and Grave Point, and several others before we hit the Port.  Dru veered off in Gilbert Bay to drop his crab pot in front of Sweetheart Creek and check the number of boats; I anchored up at the edge of deep water (anticipating a departure at low tide the next day), then paddled back to shore and passed the kayak off to Dru when he dropped his gear off.  When he came back we sat around the living room eating Subway sandwiches and drinking Chianti.  Dru was recovering from a harrowing one-armed hang from the side of his boat while anchoring.  We played scattergories and went to bed excited about the prospect of fish.

The next day I woke up distracted by the impending adventure.  I was too excited to do any of the small tasks I had around the lodge and anxiously gathered rope, a fish bonker, bug dope, tin snips, chips, and other essentials while waiting for the tide to turn.  Around noon I drug a kayak over the wide mud flats and kayaked the short distance to my boat.  My heart sank when I approached and saw water pouring weakly from the bilge pump hose....and back into the boat.  Somehow the flexible hose had wrapped back inside and was spilling water out near the large gas tank, which I'd filled the night before, failing to replace the cap.  The battery was so drained that I couldn't even tilt down the engine.  It was not a good moment.  I had yet to put jumper cables on my boat as I'd intended to after the dead battery incident earlier in the summer.  I immediately began thinking of alternatives, first how to tilt the motor down, then how to start the engine.  I dug out the manual to refresh my memory about manual tilt.  Several years before the auto tilt had broken and I'd learned how to manually loosen the system in order to tilt it by hand.  Although I certainly couldn't manipulate it very well in the water, I thought I might be able to get it safely down using gravity.  During that earlier incident, I'd come into possession of a long, slender, strong screwdriver that fit the inset manual tilt screw without getting jammed in the passage (I'd traded another boat for it) and this I kept in the glove compartment.  Sure enough I found it there, inserted it into the underwater passage while leaning over the back of the boat, and managed to loosen it until the engine gently lowered into the water.  Unfortunately, that was the high point of the experience.  I took the hood off the engine and read the instructions for manual start.  They were very straightforward, though the complete lack of drawings showing the parts of the engine under the hood was an infuriating hindrance.  What company thinks that throwing around technical part names without including a drawing THAT SHOWS WHAT AND WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE is acceptable?  I was supposed to unscrew bolts to remove the flywheel cover, but without a drawing, all I can figure is that the flywheel cover had already been removed.  Maybe that was the problem, but there was no way we could start the engine manually.  The boys had walked down the beach to meet me, so I picked up Dru in the kayak and sent Chris back for a wrench and the solar powered battery charger.  Dru and I borrowed the line from the kayak to wrap around the flywheel and yank.  I think it would have worked had the wheel not stuck every quarter turn and slowed the spin.  Nothing we could do would make it rotate freely.  Eventually we gave up and Dru went to pick up the others, bringing the solar battery charger back to me.  This is a pretty neat little system--a cute solar panel about 1.5' square attached to mini-jumper cables.  I hooked it up and laid the panel on the back bench--it indicated that it was receiving enough light to operate, but the directions skirted the issue of whether the system would charge a dead battery (it's meant to maintain them).  I jumped ship and Dru generously took us to Sweetheart.

I can't say I was in the best of moods at this point.  We found a boat at anchor and crossed paths with the occupants on their way out who'd had the same idea we had.  They said it was too early--no sockeye.  But, we were there, so we trekked in, claimed the point, and started casting.  I threw six or eight casts into the rushing water with nothing but scum to show for it.  There were no signs of salmon in or out of the water and the bear scat was full of grass and berries.  Chris took the net for a while, then showed Dave the basics.  Dave cast for a while, then offered to hand it off to Dru.  I suggested that he cast one more time while I take a photo.  I dug out the camera and snapped the photo, still in a bit of a funk.  As I was putting the camera away Chris yelled that Dave had a fish!  Expecting a dolly, I turned around to find a sockeye in the net.  Chris gave me the bonker and we dispatched it, handing it to Dave for photos.  This cheered everyone up!  We all cast for a little longer, but soon decided we'd caught the only fish in the creek, and headed back to the boat.  Still hoping for some fishing success we cast for dollies in the estuary with poles (flooded at high tide), but didn't have any serious strikes and eventually headed back to the homestead, pulling up Dru's empty crab pot on the way.  Dru dropped me at the boat to check the battery; after five hours of taking in cloudy sunlight, there wasn't enough charge to even turn it over once.

I reached a low in crankiness that night...I'd worked ridiculously hard all week to prepare for the weekend and for fishing, only to ruin it with one tiny oversight--not checking to make sure the hose pointed overboard like I usually do.  I'd realized the night before that I'd forgotten to put the cap back on the gas tank, but didn't expect much rain, and elected not to kayak back out the boat since it was anchored so far away.  If I had, this would likely have been prevented.  On top of that, my great plans for sockeye had fallen through entirely, though I was delighted that Dave caught a fish.  I retreated to my cabin for a bit and the boys wound up making dinner (pasta, salad, and garlic bread) in my absence.  After dinner we watched an eagle labor by with a fish and found her perched in a spruce tree near the water just upriver from the lodge (having learned that this was a pattern earlier in the summer).  Afterwards, Chris reminded us all of how to play hearts and we played a game to 300, not realizing that we had stayed up until after 1:00 to finish.  I won!

Whale in Taku Inlet	The winning cast	Dave and his sockeye
Dave and Dru at Sweetheart	Eagle with fish	Eagle with fish (another sockeye!?)

The next morning we canceled our plans to explore the fox farm on Fanny Island and the pulp mill up Speel Arm, and decided to just return to town, given my boat's gimpiness.  Dave had brilliantly suggested that we remove Dru's battery and let me use it temporarily to start the engine.  We packed up and lugged our gear down to deep water (low tide again) while Dru kayaked out to the Little Bitty.  Once on the Ronquil, I tried the starter again (still hooked up to the solar charger), but had no response.  Dru removed his battery and handed it off.  I hooked it up to my cables and the engine started without a hitch.  We were in business!  Dru hooked his battery back up and picked up everyone (including the dog) from shore and brought them over (see photo).  In the meantime, I'd tried to hook the cables back up to my battery so it could charge while we were underway.  This caused a lot of frightening sparks and I eventually gave up (I'm a little scared of electricity).  As long as the engine didn't stop, there would be no need for the battery on the way back.  We shuffled everyone and their gear from Dru's boat to mine (the dog was tricky) and were just about to pull the anchor when the engine quit.  Dru came back over and we started the process over again, only this time the engine wouldn't run for more than a few seconds, when it started at all.  I suspected water in the fuel (due to the proximity of the weakly flowing bilge water to the cap-less tank), so I emptied the fuel filter into a container and hooked up the smaller gas tank.  We still couldn't get the engine to go for long.  At that point I didn't want to continue draining Dru's battery as we futzed around, so I suggested that Dave and Chris go back with Dru and tell my parents to come tow me back to town the next day (or whenever they were available).  After all, the clouds had dissipated and it was a gorgeous day.  Why not stay and stain my frustrations away?

So we loaded everything back into Dru's boat and he took me and Nigel to shore, then headed out for an uneventful right back to town.  I opened everything up again, then set to staining to make the best of the situation.  I drug everything I needed over to Cottonwood, stirred up the paint, and took a crack at the back wall.  I'd assumed that I'd roll the stain on, then brush over it, but a few attempts with the roller didn't prove very effective and required a lot of follow up brush work, so I went to straight brush.  It was a hot day, and very difficult to keep a wet edge to the stain on a large, solid wall.  I made the mistake of trying to stain the insides and undersides of the overhangs at the same time as I started on the wall, but the former was so time consuming that the stain on the wall would dry before I'd move on.  On later walls, I'd stain all the underhangs, then go back and stain the wall.  More exuberant brush strokes resulted in drips down the walls, which dried immediately.  The good news was that it looked gorgeous except where I messed it up--teak was a good color choice.  After the back wall I covered the porch with a plastic drop and started there, frustrated by how complicated it was to stain the underside of the porch roof with its fascia and beams, not to mention the complications around the windows and door.  The front wall took two hours and I began to see how time consuming this process would be.  Four cabins!

I wound up too exhausted to face the idea of staining any further at that point and took a break.  Before I got back to it, I decided to tackle something a little more simple and satisfying--the back porch of the lodge.  I'd left it with two joists tacked in; all I had to do was cut the decking and nail like crazy, which went relatively smoothly.  It looks great and now that the whole structure is secure, the unsupported corner is as stable as can be and no longer causes the other corner to flip up when stepped upon.  Later, I forced myself to return to staining and finished the back wall of Mink before calling it a night.  I'd inspected the cabins earlier and found that ten walls were stain-ready and six still needed varying degrees of stripping.  Since stripping can happen in any weather, I elected to concentrate on what staining I could do.

The next morning I rose early and started staining Harbor Seal in the sun-dappled woods.  I set myself up properly with the radio playing KXLL (one of two stations Snettisham receives) while I laboriously transformed the cabin.  It was really a lovely day to stain, and I felt a little better.  I continued to try to get a signal on the satellite phone every hour or so (having entirely failed many times the previous day), but was unsuccessful until around 11:00.  My parents didn't pick up, which I thought was a good sign, and Chris confirmed that they'd gotten underway on the Alaskan around 9:00.  I figured that would put them in Snettisham around 1:00 at the earliest, so I continued staining until around noon, managing to complete all four walls before packing all my painting supplies away, then packing and cleaning up the lodge (I wanted to be ready when they showed up).  Having no more small tasks to do, I decided to go on my COASST survey with Nigel, figuring I could abort if necessary.  I trekked upriver to the grassy point, seeing some exciting tracks along the way, and spotted the Alaskan turning into the river on the way back.  I hustled back to the lodge, locked up, and headed down the beach to meet my mom in the inflatable (conveniently completing the COASST survey on the way).  Its motor wasn't working, so I had to row out to the Ronquil--a new and awkward experience!  There I started up my kicker, pulled anchor, and picked up Nigel, my mother, and the gear.  We came up behind the Alaskan, unloaded some of the gear, and successfully manhandled the dogs aboard.  My parents pulled anchor and we let out the tow line on the Ronquil.  It was an efficient operation--less than an hour from the time I spotted the Alaskan we were steaming away with the Ronquil in tow.

It was a beautiful day for a boat ride.  I chatted with my folks for a bit, then lay out on the front deck of the Alaskan in the sun, eventually retreating to the salon to escape the breeze.  I figured I owed them a wheel watch, but my dad encouraged me to nap, so I acquiesced and wound up sleeping soundly from around Grand Island until my mother woke me up at Sandy Beach.  I jumped ship (without my dog) and kickered it into my slip.  I pulled the battery and headed home, hooking it up to the charger that night.  My dog met me there.  Thanks to my folks for towing me back!  That night, I cooked up Dave's sockeye Taku style and we feasted.

After work the next day I brought the battery back down to the boat and tried to start the engine with gas from the tank I knew to be water-free.  It behaved the same way, starting and stopping and starting and stopping.  I'd had water in the gas once before (when a metal tank corroded through and filled with bilge water), and this seemed a little familiar, especially the puff of blue exhaust.  I forced a lot of gas through and eventually the engine started and stayed running.  Here's what I think happened: the bilge pump, when the battery was full strength, managed to pour water right into the large gas tank (which was cap-less due to my sloppy oversight); however, it must have quickly shifted or reduced power, as the tank wasn't overflowing.  Instead, the water went right back into the bilge, which never allowed the float switch to drop and turn off the pump, forcing the pump to continue working and draining the battery.  Using Dru's battery solved the power problem, but by the time we had everyone on board the Ronquil (probably about 10 minutes), the good fuel in the line and in the fuel filter were burnt up and the fuel filter was filling with water; eventually, water reached the engine and it died.  I took the Ronquil for a spin in the harbor to make sure everything was working well, then hooked up the bilge pump (which immediately began gushing water).  The next day I fetched the 10 gallon fuel tank from the boat and dumped it into two five-gallon buckets to allow any water to separate out.  The first bucket was milky to begin with, the second clear.  After it settled for the night, my parents helped me pour it back into the tank.  At the bottom of the first bucket we found about two inches of water--mystery solved!  At least,  I think so.  We dumped the rest back in and I declared the Ronquil ready for our impending boat camping adventure.