I'd spent a weekend in town, and I knew I would spend the following weekend in town, so it seemed I had no choice but to return to Snettisham between these town weekends to maintain spring momentum and tackle those homestead issues that blocked further progress.  Unfortunately, I had a little meltdown Friday afternoon as I scrambled around to prepare for my solo trip and by 2:30 or so it was clear I wasn't going anywhere that night.  This didn't help my mood, but I wound up back at the harbor the next morning with my gear and my dog.  My slip this year is right near the bottom of the ramp in the transient moorage area often used by riverboats and this morning I loaded my gear alongside a Native man with an attractive, long, green SeaArc not unlike a larger version of my own riverboat.  As I brought my final load down the ramp I told him I liked his boat; he said he liked mine too, and also my dog.  I think he might have been a Canadian Tlingit from up the Taku, though he had a prop on his boat. 

The morning was fine, overcast with calm seas, and the ride down was undoubtedly far more pleasant than it would have been the evening before (which was a little stormy).  It was perfectly calm all the way to Grave Point and mostly calm from there on in.  Cailey was in fine boat dog form.  As we crossed from Sentinel Point to River Point (across Gilbert Bay), three gulls came to fly in formation just above and behind the boat--a common occurrence that I suspect is like riding boat wakes.  Cailey sat on the back bench and watched them flying behind us.  We arrived at the homestead by 10:00, pleased to see more bird activity in Stephen's passage (numerous loons and murres and murrelets in breeding plumage now), though still no whales.  I dropped off gear and dog on shore, grabbed a kayak, and started pulling away, admonishing Cailey to stay on shore.  But she was not to be left behind!  She waded out toward me and I hoped that, like Nigel, she would pace the shore anxiously until I returned, then less anxiously for subsequent trips.  But she kept coming until she was full on swimming; she didn't seem to panic, but quickly turned around and retreated to shore.  The next thing I know I looked up to see her back in the water and swimming toward me with a purpose.  There wasn't anything I could do, so I went about anchoring the boat, which resulted in me backing away from her as I set the anchor, which I found amusing, watching my poor dog swim out to me.  She didn't whimper or whine and actually seemed quite calm about the whole thing.  Soon she made it to the boat and immediately tried to scramble up onto the kayak, which of course she couldn't do on her own.  I thought about letting her just swim back to shore, but she was looking a little panicked and I still had a few things to do on the boat, so I grabbed her scruff and lifted until she had her front paws on the kayak; with barely any more assistance from me, she was up.  I took a couple of pictures of her pathetic wetness balancing on the kayak, then turned around to finish tending to the boat.  A moment later she was in the boat and I was ready to leave it!  She was not to be left behind again, though.  I climbed in the kayak and she delicately followed, turned around at the widest point right in front of me, then walked up to the bow and stood perfectly balanced like a maidenhead while we paddled to shore!  Amazing. 

Cailey swimming out to the boat	Wet dog	On the kayak ride back
Kayking back together	On our COASST walk	Strange spore in the sand

Once on shore, I loaded everything up to the lodge, thinking how spoiled I am to have to do that so rarely on my own!  It was around 10:30 and, still a little down from the day before, I needed a win, a project that couldn't fail.  So I decided to rake.  Over the winter, the nice, neat trails that link the lodge, outhouses, and cabins together become covered in twigs, leaves, and other debris; though not difficult to walk over, I’ve been impressed in the past at how much nicer they look, and how much tidier the whole compound is, when raked.  So, I started behind the lodge, circled it, then took off for the cabins and made the whole loop.  It’s a lot of path!  But, it was a good win, though I wound up with quite a few devil’s club spines in me from aggressive raking into bushes.  I later retraced my path with clippers to trim back some of the berries and trees that had grown up on the path between Harbor Seal and Hermit Thrush along with some half broken branches and the branches from the fallen trees that crossed the path.  Then it was lunch time--quesadillas on the front porch—before taking my first COASST walk of the season, the first time I'll have submitted a report for April.  Cailey and I walked upriver to the grassy point (the grass was just beginning to sprout) and back to the lodge.  The tide was low and the sand covered in strange, puzzling tracks.  I finally decided that the most likely culprits were benthic creatures or objects moving along the bottom.  You'd almost thing they were mammal tracks, though.  Below the lodge we passed under the eagle's nest and, though there's been a lot of eagle activity, I couldn't tell if they were using the nest or not.  Near there we startled up a trio of small spotted sandpipers that I have yet to conclusively identify (they were not the spotted sandpipers I see during the summer, but probably migrants on their way somewhere else).  On the way back upriver I decided to climb up to the waterfall which is usually densely shrouded in brush.  The climb was easy and yielded both a beautiful little waterfall slowly eroding away the mountain (it made me think of the Ithaca gorges in their infancy) and impressive views of the valley.  I was glad again that I had borrowed Chris's camera (mine had finally expired after a dunk in Davidson Creek the week before).

Waterfall

View from the waterfall

Waterfall

Then I got back to work and my wins continued; in fact, by the end of the weekend I’d overcome nearly all my hurdles. The next issue was water: there wasn't any coming through the system.  The olive barrel up at the creek appeared intact, so I guessed that the back of it might be at a higher level than the front, preventing water from draining down the pipe.  I rolled it out and tried to deepen the pond and then laid rocks around the outlet pipe to keep it from popping up; whatever I did seemed to work, as water started flowing again.  I had less success with the generator, though even there I made progress.  My dad had given me some trouble shooting tips, which started with determining whether it was generating a spark.  I tried to ground the plug and peer into the spark plug hole to look for visual sparks, but it was tricky to hold it hard enough against a ground while simultaneously yanking on the cord.  He’d also mentioned something about holding the plug close to but not quite touching the engine body and looking/listening for a reaction there.  I thought I might have heard something the first time, but on the second or third pull I got a shock (though my glove), so I knew I had fire.  It was a fuel problem, then.  My next hint was also met with surprising success.  I poured a bit of fuel down the spark plug hole and pulled away; amazingly, after about twice as many pulls as normal, it roared to life.  Then promptly died.  But, it was a good sign!  Maybe I just needed to do it again so it would start to pull in its own fuel!  I had equal success on each of the next seven or eight times I tried it, but the engine always died.  I tried extra gas and I tried to repeat the process as quickly as possible (which was not very fast, as it involved removing and reinstalling the spark plug each time), but the engine never lived for long.  I made a feeble attempt to locate the carburetor, but it was buried in the body and beyond my comfort level/skill to access.  I ceased my efforts and decided to take the engine back with me the next day and let an expert take a look.  At least I was heartened that the engine could run and, in fact, appeared to be in good shape other than a problem with accessing fuel.

Then I headed back toward the cabin, removed and folded up the tarp that covered the cabin outhouse, and brought its step ladder down to Harbor Seal so I could unscrew the 2x2s holding down the plastic covering the door.  That door and the inside were in good shape.  By this time I'd had a brainstorm about how to fix the terrible leak in the kitchen sink.  I’d gone to Home Depot to look for replacement washers for the leak, but had no luck myself or with the (typically) incompetent help.  But it occurred to me that if the problem was in the cold water faucet and not in the spout, maybe an identical washer could be found in the hot water faucet.  To find out, I figured I should just hook the water up to the hot side.  And then it occurred to me—if that works, why not just leave it there?  Hot water is far in my future.  So I shut the water off again and moved the inlet hose to the hot water side.  Other than needing to tighten the cap on the cold side afterwards, it went off without a hitch and the leak was fixed.  Even the sink drain came back together without a problem (or leaks). 

By this time I'd run out of easy tasks and quit for the night.  I hauled in a few more loads of firewood, lit a fire, and heated up some soup for dinner before started a marathon of entirely unsuccessful games of solitaire (though I did get close several times).  A big racket behind me startled Cailey and I, which turned out to be a ceiling board that had fallen down, another victim of our inability to get some of the center boards flush with the ceiling joists.  I decided to leave it for morning.  Then, just as dusk started to fall I heard some skittering behind me and peeked back to see a mouse exploring around the live trap I'd set earlier in the day.  This ingenious little trap couldn't be simpler or less expensive to make.  It's made of two square tubes about an inch and a half wide, the second one being fused to the first at a 30 degree angle or so in the air.  When you open the door on the front end 90 degrees, it stands on two little legs that prop it open.  The other end has a cap that you can smear peanut butter onto or, in my case, a piece of cheese, then close tight.  So, a mouse enters the tube and, as soon as it reaches the second half, the tube tilts down to the floor with its weight, which raises the other end up and shuts the front door.  And you have a trapped mouse!  I'd left it out for weeks and weeks in my garage at home and only caught one of the very wily house mice that had moved in for the winter.  I hoped to have better success with this one.  He was clearly interested, but wound up putting his paws on the back half from the outside and shutting the trap.  I got up to reset the trap and he scurried away. I wasn't very hopeful that he'd return but it couldn't have been another five minutes when I heard a little thunk and then silence.  I'd caught my mouse!  I quickly carried him upriver and across the creek before letting him out on his own.  Hopefully his life in the lodge didn't soften him too much for the real world, and late April ought to yield plenty of wild food for him.  My hope is that he'd entered the lodge through the gray water drain pipe (which I'd apparently failed to seal up last fall) and that, having put together the system on the previous trip, he'd been trapped in the lodge where most of the remaining food was locked away in a mouse-proof tin.  There were no other signs of mice overnight, so I hope he was the only one.  Given the general lack of mouse dirt around, it wouldn't surprise me.

The next morning I really put the cabins together.  I placed sheets on all the bunk beds and pillowcases on the pillows, swept them all, and otherwise tidied them up (including cleaning the mold off the vanity in Mink).  I also swept the path between the lodge and the cabins and all the porches. Then I figured I may as well put the water systems together too so they're all in working order for my next guests.  Cottonwood and Mink went easily, but the mystery about the o-rings for the other two cabins remained.  My mother and I had removed all the filters and greased the o-rings the previous fall and I'd found the o-rings associated with all the clusters of filters (inside their cabins) except one.  The three filters for Mink, which were stored inside Hermit Thrush, had no o-rings with them.  I tried to remember if we'd taken them back to the lodge to grease there or something.  Since that was the least used cabin, I wasn't too concerned, except that I thought it was odd that I hadn't come across them yet.  The situation was further complicated by the fact that one of the three o-rings associated with Hermit Thrush's filters did not fit.  Trust me, I tried every combination.  The o-rings on the other two filters (each one is different) fit well and did not fit the third one.  I could only guess that one of the o-rings from Harbor Seal had been switched with this one, but where were those other o-rings? 

I finally found them, tucked down in the paper towels the filters were sitting on, when I swept up the cabin.  However, none of those o-rings fit my filter either.  Very puzzling--how did this work last year!?  The o-rings make a seal between the filter housing and its lid, where the water lines are hooked up, so a poor seal means water spraying everywhere.  I went ahead and hooked up Harbor Seal's water then, but could not fix my own.  Frustrated, I locked up the cabins and headed back to the lodge.  I started tidying up in preparation for departure later in the day and happened to notice a whole filter sitting on the floor.  I remembered that I'd had the company I purchased them from send me another filter to replace the "filter-in-the-head" model that they’d erroneously sent and that doesn't work, but which was already part of the line at Hermit Thrush; to exchange them, I have to take the whole system apart, so I haven't done it yet.  Anyway, I had the crazy idea that maybe it was the same size as the filter with the missing o-ring.  And darned if it wasn't!  I really need to get some extra o-rings!  In the meantime, though, all cabins now have running, potable water in them again.

At that point I was content with the progress on the cabins, but I figured I'd better secure the ceiling a little better.  I managed to fit the board back in place (it's tricky getting a tongue-and-groove board into the middle of the series!) and secure it and some of the surrounding boards with screws.  More security requires more manpower, but I'm pretty sure it'll stay up until the next time I'm down there!  At that point it was late in the morning and I needed to make a decision.  The tide was falling and would continue to do so for a couple more hours; if I was going to go before late afternoon, it would need to be now.  I was out of obvious tasks and pleased with my progress, so I decided to pack up and go.  Once again I appreciated the help that I usually have!  Unfortunately, the tide was already well out, so I had to carry everything down onto the mud flats around the mouth of the creek, including the generator.  That generator is  very heavy, just at the edge of my ability to carry it at all, and I did so with bent legs, staggering awkwardly with the generator banging uncomfortably on my thigh with every step.  I did not want to haul it all the way to the water, so I carried it down the stairs, drug it across the deck, and put it on a kayak on the grass.  This allowed me to drag the kayak down to the water, which was considerably easier. 

By the time I had everything sitting at the edge of water , the tide had already retreated farther away and I knew that it was going to be a tough turnaround.  The river drops to a point where the water is more uniformly deep, which means that it's too shallow for quite a distance off dry land for a boat to float.  But I was in for a pleasant surprise first.  As I was situating the kayak at the water's edge for its real purpose, Cailey starting trying to climb in!  Since its back end was anchored in the mud it was moving around too much for her in the front, so I sat down and she immediately climbed in like she'd been doing it her whole life.  We paddled out to the boat without a backward glance.  I pulled up alongside so Cailey was right next to the back bench and she leaped out like a little deer!  Amazing. 

On the way back in I could clearly see the deeper channel where the trickle of water from the wash comes out (which is surprisingly deep for such low flow) and followed that in as close as I could.  Then came the mad scramble.  I first hauled the engine into the boat (now 15 feet from shore), then pushed it into deeper water, held it steady, and drug the kayak as fast as I could up the beach.  In order not to waste time I didn't take it all the way to the deck as usual, but brought it up to the edge of the current bushes and quickly tied it to a log.  Then I ran back, grabbed more gear, and was disappointed to see that the boat had moved into the channel such that I was going to get wet.  To make matters worse, my frantic tossing of gear over the stern of the boat startled Cailey (who, amazingly, had stayed in the boat while I took the kayak up, showing impressive understanding of the whole operation for only her second time), who leaped into the water.  I feel badly that I scolded her when she was being such a good dog.  I picked her up and chucked her back in, followed by all the rest of my gear.  By this time the boat was firmly grounded and it was all I could do to move it at all.  About half of it was in the shallow water on the other side of the channel and I knew my only chance was to push it all the way in.  I've been in that situation many times before, but I believe this was the most stuck I've ever been.  I heaved and heaved and heaved and eventually got the bow in, then used all my remaining energy to push the stern out an inch at a time.  Eventually, the boat floated.  I hopped in (wet up to my thighs) and paddled us through the twisty channel and then to deeper water.  In a few weeks when the river is siltier again I won't be able to see the channel at all, but for now it was a dark green color and easy to follow.

The weather had closed in overnight and the steady rain on the metal roof that I'd enjoyed listening to all night had continued.  It also appeared a bit breezy, but you never know what it's going to be like until you're out in Stephen's Passage.  While I started to organize gear, Cailey was already curling up on the blanket that I'd thrown carelessly on the back bench!  I gently nudged her off and put down her regular blanket in her spot between the seats, covering her with the other blanket.  I think she was very tired and chilled from the rain and wading in the river and she quietly curled up.  I finished organizing gear and put five gallons in the main tank, and then we took off.  The seas in the entrance to Snettisham suggested that we'd run into a southeasterly in Stephen's Passage, but it wasn't too bad.  We passed the sea lions and, finally, a whale blow close to shore just inside Port Styleman, and then we were in the seas.  It wasn't too bad going directly into them or running straight down the trough, but anywhere inbetween was a bit uncomfortable.  They were two and three foot seas, just enough to pull on the bottom of the boat if it caught us at speed from a certain angle.  I turned to put it on my stern as soon as I'd gotten safely past Seal Rocks and things were a bit more comfortable then.  I tried to cheer myself by remembering that the section between Seal Rocks and Limestone Inlet is one of the worst places in a southeasterly, so things might get better a little further on.  By the time we passed Limestone I was feeling pretty beaten up and I considered stopping in at Taku Harbor to rest a bit and refuel.  For the last couple of years I've been putting 10 gallons in as I leave Snettisham (having burned not quite ten on the way down), but I used to only put five in and wouldn't have to switch tanks until Sandy Beach or so (very close to home).  I'd thought to give that a try, but the seas were so unpleasant that I didn't want to have to switch tanks at the mercy of them. 

But by the time I got up there I didn't want to waste the time to go all the way into the harbor and back, so I pressed on to Grave Point and beyond.  Poor Cailey lay curled up next to me, raising her head after every bad bump and curling right back up again.  Every 20 minutes or so she got up and turned around before laying back down and I tucked her in again every time, using the rest of the blanket to cover the generator.  I never thought I'd see a dog snooze through rough seas!  For myself, I wasn't enjoying the trip very much at all.  Thankfully I was wearing my survival suit so I wasn't nearly as cold as I might have been despite the wet legs, the boots full of water, the bare hands (my gloves were still wet from the day before), and the wind and driving rain.  I was really looking forward to getting home and having a warm and leisurely Sunday evening.

Mouse release (he's in the middle)

Kayaking out to the boat

Curled up on the ride home

As we crossed to Grand Island I happened to look back to check the engine and saw a sea lion rise high up out of the water in my wake not far behind us.  When we reached the lee of Grand Island I stopped to refuel and discovered a fishing boat anchored up there.  The full jerry jug I needed had one of the dysfunctional "safe" nozzles on it, so I took it off to swap it with another, more functional, version.  In doing so I discovered ice!  There was a rim of ice at the base of the nozzle, a puzzle I have yet to solve.  Gas, salt water.....what other factors caused ice to form in what was probably 45-50 degree weather?

From there we traveled to Point Arden and from Arden to Marmion Island and, at long last, into the relative calm of the channel.  It was a long, wet, two hour ride.  At the harbor I found it difficult to pull into my new slip (which is crosswise with the wind) and was surprised at how the wind was whipping ferociously around the harbor.  Although I'd been relatively comfortable for most of the ride, the cold had caught up to me and I was thoroughly chilled.  Unfortunately, I wasn't done yet!  I struggled to tie up the boat with my icy hands, then unloaded all the gear and started up the ramp with what I could carry.  Cailey, who had disappeared as soon as she could get off the boat, showed up behind me and I was able to secure her in the truck and pick up a cart on the way back.  Of course we'd moored at low tide, so the ramp was quite steep.  I did manage to get all the rest of my regular gear up in the cart with some labor, but the generator was another story, so I employed a tactic I've only used once or twice before: I used the new ramp.  It's quite a ways farther away, but it's longer and therefore less steep at low tide; it's also very grippy.  I lugged the generator into the cart, shuffled down the dock, and made it up the ramp.  Then I walked back to the truck, clambered in, picked up the generator on the way out, and drove home.  I can remember few times when I've been as happy to get back!  I unloaded everything into the garage (everything was thoroughly soaked), dried off the engine a little, and began peeling off my layers, starting with the orange suit and the xtratuffs still full of water.  Cailey got toweled off and we shuffled inside where my other three layers came off and I hopped into a shower Chris had all warmed up for me.  And so Snettisham is all opened up and ready to go before May!