Spring maintenance went smoothly, almost without a hitch.  The Ronquil spent some time in the shop over the winter getting the main engine serviced (the impellor and thermostat were replaced, among other things), a new fathometer installed, etc.  The original intent was to get the tilt fixed, which failed more often than it worked toward the end of last season (leaving us stranded on a sandbar once), but the tilt never failed in the shop and would cost around $800 to repair, so I let it go and hoped for the best.  I picked it up in January between snow storms when the driveway was clear of ice and tucked it under its new covered boat shelter for the rest of the winter.  In April and May I thoroughly scrubbed the boat, performed some standard maintenance, made sure the bilge pump worked, and replaced the anchor line.  In the process I discovered that some of the floor/hull supports had vibrated loose again, so it spent about ten days at the welder's shop getting fixed.  Every time I walked by the boat I pressed the tilt switch to make sure it was still working.  It was--right up until the day before I planned to take it out for the first time!  That was discouraging to say the least, but I had no one but myself to blame for thinking there was any way it would have just started working again without a hitch.  I left a message with my mechanic, but of course nothing could be done for the weekend.

And so I developed a plan to take the boat out anyway.  The tilt allows me to trim the boat while underway, drive through shallow water, bring the boat up on the beach to offload, and anchor on the sandbars close to the lodge where the boat can go dry at low tide.  But, it's not actually essential, it just means that the weekend becomes more awkward and involves more work.  The first problem was that the engine was tilted up and resting comfortably on its support lever, so I couldn't just unscrew the manual tilt screw and let gravity drop it into position.  First I had to raise the engine to release the pressure on the support.  It's way too heavy for people to lift, so I came up with another plan.  After hitching up the boat and moving in onto the asphalt in front of the garage, I wheeled out my floor jack, added an alder round to increase its height, and positioned it under the engine.  Then I unscrewed the manual tilt screw and, very carefully, raised the engine up a few inches with the jack.  Hiding behind the side of the boat in case something went wrong, I then swung up the support lever by tapping it with a screwdriver, and (from the same hiding place) slowly lowered the engine back down, jumping in to try to tighten the manual tilt screw when the engine sank to the typical underway angle.  I caught it just a few inches lower than I normally run, but all in all it was a successful operation.  I finished packing up and loaded the boat with all its summer gear and the truck with all the spring Snettisham gear, and we headed to the harbor around 9:00 am Saturday morning to open up the homestead.

At the harbor we launched the boat without incident.  Getting the main engine started was a little trickier, however, and involved a very smoky, well-choked engine.  I let it run at high idle for a long time before slowly lowing the choke.  The engine died, and I was very relieved to get it running again.  This time we let it run longer, took some photos, and when I thought it was bound to be all warmed up and free of its winter sluggishness, I quickly dropped the choke and threw it into gear and we were off.  All week long I'd been checking the marine forecast, noting a half day northwesterly that kept moving around every time I checked, hoping that we might catch it.  We timed it perfectly--a light northwesterly that followed us to Snettisham, not slowing us down at all.  Despite the early hour and a late night before, we drank Molson goldens as we left the harbor, toasting to a missing boat dog and the weather gods.  The trip was quiet and uneventful.  Since Taku Inlet was calm, I made an unusual detour to pass close enough to Circle Point (between Slokum Inlet and Taku Harbor) to see if there were any sea lions at the old winter colony there.  We found two lions in the water, one of which shot up and landed on the rocks as we watched; the other made a few comical attempts to join him, then they both slipped back into the water.  Between Circle Point and Grave Point, dozens of large green and yellow buoys lay offshore, a spring phenomenon I have yet to unravel.

There were no whales in Stephen's Passage that we saw, but we passed two in the entrance to the Port.  We could see that the haul-out was packed with sea lions, but did not sweep in for a closer look.  Instead, we crossed the calm of Gilbert Bay and into a frenzy of activity at the mouth of the Whiting River.  Thousands upon thousands of gulls circled and dove on the water (dominated by Bonaparte's gulls), picking up small silvery fish with nearly every attempt we watched.  Groups of goldeneyes floated closer to shore along with rafts of scoters, and a gang of sea lions cavorted amongst it all.  Soon the lodge came into view, apparently still standing and awaiting our return.  Unfortunately, we were only a few hours into a rising tide and clearly couldn't bring the boat into shallow enough water to avoid getting our feet wet anywhere near the lodge (I forgot my waders).  Instead, we went to shore at the last bit of muddy beach near the drop off, grabbed a few essentials, and let the wind press us against the mud so we were able to hop off onto dry land.  Chris drug the anchor high onto the rocks and we left the Ronquil there with most of our gear to await the high tide when we could bring it closer in.  Then we hiked the 200-300 yards to the lodge, which was perfectly intact.  After opening up, we took down the board covering the picture window and Chris took down the paper on the insides of the other windows while I hooked up the propane for the range.  Upon opening the bear proof box that houses the propane tanks, I was pleased to see that I'd been clever enough to leave the wrench there for hooking up the fresh tank stashed inside (the previous one had run out during my last stay).  Everything was orderly and there wasn't even any dust inside. 

We were hungry, so I quickly cooked up some spectacular Snettisham quesadillas (far superior to those I can cook on an electric range) and we sat on the porch in the sunshine and ate.  A hummingbird buzzed in, checked on the status of the (still nonexistent) feeders, and zipped away.  We pondered whether the hummers were checking on the feeders regularly, or whether this one was prompted by our arrival!  But, it was too comfortable outside to immediately make nectar, so the hummingbird had to wait.  The sun was warm, green shoots were sticking up among the dead beach grass, and a whale moved in to feed amongst the gulls.  Lunch merged into relaxing on the porch, which lapsed into a lovely nap in the sunshine while waiting for the tide to rise.  This left me feeling thoroughly happy and relaxed and (in combination with the boat trip down) badly sun burnt.

I eventually managed to rouse myself a little before the high tide and headed out in a kayak to where the boat floated gently offshore.  I carried the anchor back to the boat, started the engine with no problem, and idled into the beach where Chris helped me unload all the gear.  Then I turned tail and headed back for deep water to anchor up, pleased with my new fathometer.  I was surprised to find that the 30' mark where I usually try to anchor was considerably farther downstream than I remembered; it's been a few years since I've had a working fathometer, and the inlet has apparently continued to fill with glacial silt and sand in the meantime.  As I puttered along looking for the right spot, a sea lion broke from its group nearby and came up close behind me a couple of times, and then right next to the boat.  I hurriedly anchored and climbed into the kayak in the hopes that they'd approach when I was lower on the water, but as soon as I sat down they booked it away in the other direction.  On the paddle back I came across three more, less boisterous, sea lions.

Back at the homestead Chris had already hauled all the gear up to the cabin.  We finally left the lodge area and made the loop to the rest of the cabins, discovering more evidence of naughty bears but all the cabins intact.  I'd left a dozen or so cans of soda in the freshet, all of which were chewed on and strewn about, most entirely drained of their contents.  I remembered this phenomenon from the lodge where bears would discover caches of beer or soda in the woods and, apparently, drink them.  I'm sure it would be amusing to watch!  I also spotted a bunch of visqueen in the creek and realized immediately where it came from.  Sure enough, the plastic I'd screwed over the door of Harbor Seal Cabin was torn off, thankfully without claw marks.  Farther up the path to Hermit Thrush we came upon short lengths of hose that had been chewed off, as I'd foolishly left my brand new hose on my porch all winter.  Other than that, everything was in good order.  Back at the lodge we installed the wood stove smoke stack, made up some sugar water for the birds, then decided to enjoy the sunshine a little more.  I put together my brand new fishing pole and headed down to the water, hoping to find some dollies attracted to the fry that like the shallows where the little seep runs out in front of the lodge.  Chris brought a lawn chair down and read near the water while I fished.  I spent some time right in front of the lodge, then made my way along the riverfront to the mouth of the real creek at the edge of the property upriver, but never had a strike.  Thoroughly enjoying the leisurely afternoon, I then got a shovel and began to see about the mucky part of the stone path where water from one of our under-porch drainage ditches pooled up over the rocks where the ditch petered out.  I began extending the ditch, curving it off into the meadow and draining the path.  Chris soon joined me and finished the job while I started working on piles of dirt nearby.

Ever since Chris and I built the porch two summers ago, I've been dissatisfied with the area just in front of it.  Last summer we placed logs over the ditches, which made it a bit more safe, but there were still old mounds of dirt from digging them, a makeshift asymmetrical fire pit of shale, and a mound of vegetation that hemmed in the log benches.  Although I'd had no intention of working on this that weekend, I fell to work redistributing the mound of dirt over the fire pit/bench area to make a more level area.  The rooty sod I dug up I placed along the sides of the logs covering the trenches in an effort to level the area around them and make them more a part of the landscape.  It was a good method and made me feel better about ripping up so much vegetation.  While we worked, two hummingbirds came to the feeders regularly, both females.  Eventually we wore out and called it a day.  I started dinner and Chris lit a little fire after we cooled off from all the exertion.  We ate pasta and played gin until bed.

Ermergency kit vacuum sealed	Deep water drop off	Curious lion
Gang of sea lions in the inlet	Pop can carnage left by a bear	Reading by the river

The next morning I got up around nine, went to the lodge, and immediately headed up to put the water barrel in the creek.  I'd forgotten one rather critical item in town--the filters and filter housings for the water system!  So, there would be no running potable water this time.  But, at least we could get fresh water to the lodge.  For the first time, the jugs of water I left in the lodge over the winter (caps off to let the frozen water expand) came in handy, but we were nearly out by then.  On the way I discovered several areas of the water pipe that had been chewed by a bear, but it did not appear that the bear had actually punctured the pipe (see photo below).  Everything was in order at the top, with a rather large new boulder at the foot of the waterfall just above the pool where the olive barrel goes.  I tried to clean out the barrel's watery nook by scraping rocks up with my feet, as usual, but there was too much water and I didn't make much progress.  So I cleaned off the screen on the barrel that keeps the larger particles out, dumped out the water inside, and manhandled it into the creek.  It looked like it was deep enough, so I rocked it in and turned on the valve.

Back at the lodge, I turned on the lower valve and was pleased to see water come gushing out.  I washed up, brought some water inside, unpacked the food and other gear we'd neglected the night before, then I think I worked a little more on the leveling project outside.  Eventually I decided to take advantage of the fine weather and the lowish tide to go on my first COASST survey of the summer.  I headed upriver to the grassy point, enjoying the hard sand/silt and low vegetation, scaring up eagles and ravens along the way.  When I came level with the rocky point on the way back, Chris joined me and we continued downriver past the lodge; Chris reported that there were now at least three hummingbirds coming to the feeder, including a bright scarlet-throated male.  When we were about even with the eagle's nest I spotted a little silver fish on the ground, then another and another.  I soon had half a dozen specimens that I carried up onto a flat rock for photographing.  We guessed that at least part of the frenetic bird and other wildlife in the river must be attracted to these beautiful little smelt.  After I'd arranged them and taken a few photos, Chris showed up with half a dozen more of them; they were all over the beach!  I thought they might be hooligan spawning in the river, but when I got home and studied my photos in relation to information about Alaskan smelt, I found features that were inconsistent with hooligan.  My next guess, based largely on the anal fin area, was capelin, and this was later confirmed by several biologists (see photo below).  I know the murrelet camp found capelin in Snettisham in the past, and I've smelled them just outside the Port, so this was further confirmation that they frequent Snettisham.  The quantity of dead individuals on the beach suggests that they were spawning somewhere nearby, but where remains a mystery.  I have a soft spot for capelin, so this was pleasing news.

There were also a few small shrimp dead in the pools.  The wildlife must have been satiated with fish, for we found none of them feeding on the capelin there.  Back at the lodge I launched back into taming the wild patch around the fire pit.  The farther along I got, the more ambitious I became.  I'd soon moved all the benches out of the way, removed the fire pit, and ran into the mound, an old thorn in my side.  This mound was about five feet in diameter and three feet tall and annoyed me very much.  In the process of leveling the area in front of it I'd unearthed a log that was part of its foundation, which confirmed my suspicions about its origin.  I began to ponder its destruction.  First, though, I destroyed a smaller mound off to the side of it and by the time I was ready to tackle the big mound, Chris had taken over the effort and I was happy to putter around on other tasks.  I moved a few logs, trimmed the currents back from the edge of the porch, cut a number of saplings and berry bushes pushing their way into the meadow, and cleared the area I chose for Nigel's grave and cottonwood tree.  While I did that, Chris made good progress against the mound.  While we were working, I started to hear a crazy, frenetic bird call that eventually was so distracting that I thought I'd better find out what was making it.  In addition to the thousands of gulls and flocks of scoters, small groups of mergansers, goldeneyes, mallards, and other ducks I couldn't identify floated around the river, sometimes coming onto our beach.  I focused my efforts on a flock of ducks in the middle of the river, but it didn't appear that they were vocalizing and when they all dove while the calls continued; I shifted my focus a little closer to home.  There at the edge of the water, among a great racket, a greater yellowlegs was climbing on top of his mate!  It went on long enough that I was able to alert Chris to see the action.  These two had been frequenting the beach ever since we arrived, making no less noisy, though slightly less dramatic, calls.  Pretty exciting!

Eventually I decided to shift tasks and begin some plumbing work while Chris continued to hack away. After my unexpected plumbing adventure last summer which brought water to all four cabins, I'd resolved this spring to finish that project and get potable, running water inside the cabins.  After all, a hose full of water at pressure on the ground outside isn't very convenient for brushing teeth.  I'd brought along a second valve for all four cabins, so each cabin could have a valve permanently hooked up to the water filters leading inside the cabin and a second valve that could be used for hose work without disconnecting the drinking water system.  I drained the water out of the system, cut off the existing valves, cut some additional pieces of connecting pipe from the leftovers staged near Mink Cabin, and started splicing them in.  I got as far as I could on the first two cabins (installing a T splice and one of the two valves on each), and started cutting into the water line at the third cabin until I realized that the valve at the top was still on (water started leaking out). I hiked all the way up there only to find that the valve refused to turn even with the assistance of a hammer.  I brought Chris with me later, but we only wound up stripping the mechanism and rendering it permanently functionless.  The valve remained open and I quit plumbing for the day.

Chris had had more success with the mound.  One of its supports was a very long, very heavy log which he had to hack into two pieces with an ax to remove.  We end-over-ended it away along with several other logs until we had a nice, relatively level, square patch of dirt.  We talked about how much humans (and we were no exception) enjoy straight, level, square areas in the middle of the wilderness!  I think it's a deep seated instinct.  By this time we'd both worked up an appetite, so I made buffalo tacos for dinner.  It was still relatively early when we were finished eating, so we went back to work outside a little.  We replaced the benches on our new little "lawn" and brought a bunch of round diorite-like rocks from around Cottonwood Cabin for a new, improved fire pit.  Most I carried, some we brought by wheel-barrow.  Around that time, some mist settled in and we had a vibrant rainbow just across the river, bringing to our attention a new landslide at the bottom of the wide avalanche area.  Soon a faint double rainbow showed up as well.  Behind us, the hummingbird count has risen to seven and the familiar buzzing was our constant companion.

By that time I was ready to retire.  Since Chris planned to stay up for a while, we grabbed the portable propane heater (Mr. Buddy) and set it up in Hermit Thrush to take the chill off while he sat up.  I'd been struggling with an unusual headache all evening, which kept me awake in bed despite my exhaustion.  While I laid there I listened to the rain beginning to fall on the metal roof and let my thoughts wander where, after some time, they landed on a rather large oversight I'd made.  I realized that after picking up the boat from the welders I'd checked to make sure the bilge pump still worked, but had failed to put the bilge exit pipe over the side of the boat.  I hoped it was still connected to the pump but coiled up under the floorboards, but I couldn't be certain even of that.  It was raining; although the bilge was dry when we left it, if the pump started going during the night it was likely to drain the battery as it dumped its water right back into the bilge...  There was nothing to do but go out there and either get the hose over the side of the boat or disconnect the bilge pump from the battery if the hose was missing.  Unfortunately, it was dark.  Fortunately, Chris is an amazing adventure buddy and pretty much game for anything.  We bundled up, tromped our way back to the lodge with flashlights, pulled out a double kayak, and drug it down to the water.  It was a pretty low tide, but we found our way to the mouth of the seep and headed out.  Chris was in front, so he shone the flashlight and I paddled for most of the way to the boat, which loomed spookily out of the darkness (remember that it's anchored quite far from the lodge).  I admit, it was more than a little creepy coming up on an empty boat in the dark!  Thankfully, the pipe was there under the floorboards, still hooked up to the bilge pump, so it only took a few minutes to pull it through the hole in the floorboard and hang it over the side of the boat.  Chris did most of the paddling on the way back while I found the lodge.  All in all it was a very easy trip, and my headache disappeared entirely.

Creek pre-olive barrel	Olive barrel in the creek	Chris at the rocky point
Starting work on the "lawn"	Tackling the mound	The log
A level place in the wilderness	The ditch to drain the path	Double rainbow over the landslide

I don't think it actually rained much that night, and the sky was clear again the next morning.  I got up relatively early in order to get a little work done before our 9:00 am departure (it was a work day and I planned to be at the office after lunch).  First I fulfilled a long-time promise to fix the leak in the water line close to the top of the system that had destroyed all the vegetation within a ten foot radius last summer.  Only it turned out to be two leaks.  First thing I heated up a kettle of water and trekked up there with it, hose clamps, couplings, hack saw, tin cup, and screwdriver.  It may have taken me two trips to remember everything. At that elevation, the hose is stretched pretty taught, so jamming the loose ends of the cut pipe into the tin cup of hot water and then over the couplings was challenging.  Once those were complete, I turned to another, single puncture hole close to the top; though the overall volume of water was small, this single bear tooth puncture happened to spray fiercely right across the path to the water source and the top valve.  I'd thought about how my parents keep telling me that I could use bicycle tires and had realized that the now-dysfunctional hose might work as well.  So I found a short piece of hose left behind by the bear and returned to the lodge to cut it in half with tin snips.  Then I returned to the site and further reduced the length and width of the hose several times until it fit nicely around the hose; then I realized that I'd foolishly used up all the big hose clamps and left myself with a size 20, which wasn't much wider than the poly pipe.  To find out if it was big enough, of course, I had to unscrew the whole hose clamp so I could get it around the pipe.  Thankfully, by further trimming the length of the garden hose bandage, I managed to fit it around everything and screw it back together.  It worked brilliantly and may become a regular repair method for small holes. 

Then came the much trickier job of replacing the valve that leads to the third annd fourth cabins.  This involved cutting out the old valve and splicing in a new one.  Half of this was easy, but getting the 

loose end of the hose back around the coupling took a tremendous about of work; the first effort went so poorly that I stopped and resoaked the end of the hose in hot water to try again.  In the middle I noticed that the side of my leg was really wet and figured that I must have rubbed up against something wet from the rain in my struggle.  When it was finished I reached into my pocket to extract the small bottle of WD-40 to help protect the valve from corrosion, I discovered that my wet leg was the result of having discharged the entire bottle of WD-40.  I still haven't attempted to clean those pants!

Down at the cabins I installed the second valve at Cottonwood and Mink cabins and turned the water on for that run of pipe (I have a theory that bears are less likely to chew pipes full of water).  I cleaned up the lodge, packed up, covered the windows and, after some consideration, washed the dishes.  It's amazing how inconvenient it is to not have running water!  Washing dishes involved rinsing all the dishes outside under the missing water filters, heating water and laboriously washing them with small amounts of hot water inside, then rinsing them back outside (several tubs full of them; I considered just taking them to town, but was happy in the end to have them done).  When it came time to head out, we pondered our loading strategy.  In the end, because we had very little to take back to town, we decided that I'd kayak down to the boat with most of our gear and Chris would walk down the beach and meet me at deep water.  Upon arrival I fueled the boat, loaded and organized gear, and started the engine without a hitch.  While it was warming up, I tried repeatedly to start the kicker, to no avail.  Everything seemed to be in place and functional, but it simply wouldn't catch.  I was in no hurry, as Chris was casting on shore with my new fishing pole in the sunshine.  While I puttered on the boat, I looked up to see a bright flash of silver as a fish he brought in splashed at the surface and shook loose.  He had several strikes, but didn't get a good enough look to identify them.  Maybe there are trout down there after all! 

Eventually I came in to shore and picked him up against the rocks, dragging the kayak up beyond a log at the edge of the forest.  As we crossed Gilbert Bay, we were lucky enough to have a close look at a stunning red-necked grebe.  The sun was shining again and I worried that a westerly would be blowing down Stephen's Passage; the chop in the entrance of the Port was troubling, but we swung by the sea lion colony (several hundred lions still on the rocks) and hugged the shoreline to escape it until we reached Mist Island and continued to thump our way along.  Surprisingly, we turned north/west up Stephen's Passage and found the chop on our stern, following us home.  Stephen's Passage was quiet--no whales or other large wildlife (nor had we seen whales in the Port).  As we were crossing Taku Inlet I started day dreaming about orcas (a common event), remembering an evening encounter with them in that area some 13 years ago.  As always, I was periodically swinging my head around to look for any sign of them when I spotted a big black fin break the surface and disappear.  Orcas!  Or, one orca anyway, for I saw no other for several minutes.  We headed in that direction and discovered two orcas--it was a mother and calf.  Then a few others showed up behind us, widely scattered, so it was looking like we'd come upon a small group of transients.  Then a large male showed up in the distance closer to the Point Bridget shoreline and, after getting some nice shots of the cow and calf, I headed in that direction (since mature males are often the key to identifying a pod).  I did get a look at him, but didn't find any helpful identifying features.  Suddenly more orcas started showing up in our area, including a group of three females/young males, that came right to us and swam under the boat, one of which revealed the characteristic open saddle patch of residents.  So, we had a resident pod!  Their behavior was extremely erratic; individuals and small groups went every which way, breaking up and getting together and changing direction so much that it was extremely difficult to keep track of who was who.  More fins showed up in the distance, but there appeared to be around eight milling in the area where we were between Bishop and Salisbury points. 

And then, a very exciting sighting.  A young calf came up to starboard that was missing the top third or so of his dorsal fin!  I'd never seen that before, and I immediately started to wonder if this was a known orca, or possibly a very young calf.  He/she would be very distinct!  And so my goal became a good left side ID photo of the little guy.  We moved in his general direction, then stopped as more chaos ensued and orcas went every which way.  Approaching was another large male and, when he surfaced in front of me, I was delighted to see that it was AF19--a large male with an extremely open saddle patch, unique in SE Alaska to my knowledge.  I'd seen this guy's photo many times and always hoped to encounter him, but never had a good, identifying look.  Unfortunately, none of my photos managed to capture his saddle patch, but the memory is clear.  Thus, we were with AF22 pod, one of the two pods that used to be one big AF pod back when I worked on whale watching boats.  It had been years since I'd spent time with AF, but I remembered that they'd always treated us really well--we called them our friendly orca pad for their great shows and tolerant behavior towards us.  This group was no exception, often approaching the boat and passing around/under us when we were shut down, even when they could have gone in any other direction.

After AF19 passed, a group of five orcas got together and turned back north, including a female with a very open saddle patch and the calf with the ragged fin.  I traveled alongside them just long enough to get a nice ID photo of the calf, revealing a very faint, very open, saddle patch.  Shortly thereafter we shut down one more time, about 100 yards from a group of very active orcas.  Some of them twisted and splashed at the surface, others occasionally porpoised or slapped their tails.  It looked like they were probably feeding.  As we watched from a distance, I suddenly became aware of a squeaking sound and I wondered what on the boat could be rubbing together with so much high-pitched friction.  Then I recognized the sound--echolocation!  An orca had hit upon our boat with the zipping of echolocation!  I'd never heard it before above water without the aid of a hydrophone.  Amazing.  As we sat there, this group of orcas broke off their milling behavior and moved directly to the Ronquil.  Remember that we were in open water here, and the pod could have chosen any other direct to travel, and we were dead in the water.  About eight of them passed within 30 feet of the bow and the stern and the little raggedly finned calf rolled over about 25 feet from the boat and showed us his belly and the underside of his tail before slipping into the water.  They headed off toward Marmion Island, and we headed home.  Consequently, I showed up to work a little later than expected, but orcas take precedent!  I quickly emailed my photos to Graeme Ellis, renowned orca researcher, who graciously made a quick identification of three of the orcas I photographed, all with very open saddle patches.  They were AF4, (born in 1961 or before), her daughter AF28 (born 1988), and AF28's calf AF87, the calf with the raggedy fin (born in 2009).  Three generations together!  It was, all in all, a good start to the summer.

AF28
AF87 (AF28's 2009 calf)	AF4?	Cow and calf
Orca rolling (that's his white belly)	Orca passing the boat	AF87 rolling near the boat