Snettisham 2013 - 3: Snettisham's First Baby
May 31 - June 2

Brown bear tracks

Ben and Jeannette were graciously back in town to introduce us to their 12 week old baby; always ready for adventure, we were bound for Snettisham—little Ayzling would be the first baby to visit the homestead (at least in my time)! I’d spent the previous weekend there with Chris, flown to Anchorage for an overnight on Tuesday, and taken Thursday afternoon off work to run errands in preparation. So when we finished strapping down the four 2x12 boards to the top of the Kathy M's cabin and set off for the fuel dock, I was ready for a leaving-the-harbor beer and some relaxation. In the end, Ayzling may have been the only one on board to really relax during the trip south due to some rather unpleasant southerly seas, but we made it. The worst section was Taku Inlet between Marmion Island and Grand Island, at which point we stopped and  idled around in the lee of a point and had a picnic lunch of brie, bread, crackers, summer sausage, peanuts, and fruit. Beyond that the seas settled down a bit, I took over driving to give my mother a rest, and the boards on top moved around a little less (benefiting from having their lines tightened during our break), and we finally made it to Snettisham. The wet weather fogged the windows, so I squeegeed the window every minute or so to improve visibility. We did run the Mr. Buddy propane heater during most of the ride, though, so we were warm inside and Ayzling slept most of the way.

One benefit to taking our time getting down to the homestead was not arriving at the very bottom of a low tide as expected; it was still pretty low, though, and my mother and I hauled the gear to shore in waders. Ben helped me offload the lumber and by the time I kayaked back from anchoring the boat everything was on the porch and my mother had lit a fire, turned on the water, and was heating a kettle on the range. We were all ready to relax. I unpacked the myriad supplies I’d brought, then joined everyone in some wine. That night I made salmon chowder for dinner and we retired early.

Heading away to anchor the boat

Mom and Ayzling

Cailey at the window

The next morning I slept until 7:30 and made it to the lodge in time to tidy up, do the dishes, light a fire, and heat some water before anyone arrived. My mother came over while I was sitting in the woods listening to Pacific wrens sing back and forth to each other on the slopes behind the lodge, and the Johnsons followed shortly thereafter. A solid rain had started in the night, so we sat around the living room drinking hot drinks and enjoying Ben’s banana pancakes. With the rain and the infant, we spent most of the day inside passing around the baby and chatting while completing a puzzle—possibly the first puzzle I’ve ever actually finished! The time I spent outside was quiet with little excitement on the birding front with the exception of a beautiful spotted sandpiper by the water.

After a quesadilla lunch we bundled up and went for a COASST survey at low tide. Jeannette borrowed my enormous camouflaged raincoat and held Ayzling in a moby wrap on her chest. I wore rain pants, but otherwise went barefoot (not yet having put socks on that day at all). I was worried about the cold, but never got chilled; the mud and sand and little pools of river water felt wonderful. We walked up the beach toward the grassy point, stumbling onto enormous brown bear prints in the mud, somewhat diminished by at least one tide, but still clear enough to see the toenails. Next to that trail were two strands of grass on the sand; I thought at first he might have left them there while idly munching his way along, but thought that unlikely since at least one tide had come in since he’d been there. His tracks disappeared periodically as he walked over different substrates, but we found evidence of chewed off grass on the point and crushed grass where he had walked there. On the other side we watched a yellowlegs hunt at the edge of the channel and checked out his tracks, conspicuously lacking hallux prints.

On the way back we watched tiny fry skittering about the smallest of “tidepools” in the sand, some of which were the size of a softball and barely deep enough to submerge the 1-2” fish. I entrained one just by stepping in a nearby puddle and hustled him to deeper water. When we reached the eagle’s nest we heard crows inside the trees, including begging calls and the sounds of a nestling being fed, and watched one of them harass the resident eagle with the missing secondary feathers (one side seemed to be missing two, but at least it was in the same place as the gap on the other side).

That evening we ate Philly cheese steak sandwiches with Krusteaz crumb cake for dessert. A young swan flew by low to the water and close to shore and a Lincoln’s sparrow sang in the shrubs outside the lodge. We played a few rounds of gin rummy while Ayzling slept until it was too dark to see (the propane lights are still non-functional).

Hanging out with my cousin (Ben's photo)	Cailey seems uncertain, but Ayzling is happy (Ben's photo)	Jeannette and Ayzling
Mud sticks to my bare feet	Chomped grass	Playing gin

The rain cleared overnight and the morning was stunning. I slept a little longer, cleaned up the lodge, then relaxed on the porch with Jeannette and my mom drinking champagne while Ben made breakfast burritos with eggs and leftover fillings from the sandwiches. I also found the machete and cleared the vegetation along the top of the path and around the fire pit and near Nigel’s cottonwood tree. In doing so I heard a rustle in the grass and caught a small western toad, which I immediately showed everyone, including Ayzling. She seemed only mildly interested, so we took some photos and let it go. The day could not have been more beautiful. We took a tour around the property to see some of the improvements I’d made in the three years since they’d been there last. While we were on the porch of Hermit Thrush, Cailey tore down the trail toward Harbor Seal, which caused Jeannette to notice a critter running up the mountainside across the creek. When I spotted it, my mind blundered around with possibilities—it was cat-sized, reddish, tubby, with a bushy tail. It looked like neither an otter nor a mink and was too small for a wolverine, and didn’t move like a weasel at all, but there weren’t many other possibilities. We talked about the possibility of a pack rat, but back in Juneau I compared the tails and determined that it must have been a marmot. Although more common in the alpine, marmots do sometimes make their homes as sea level if conditions are favorable. Ben and Jeannette lingered after cleaning their cabin to take photos of Ayzling in the giant fallen tree.

Since the day was beautiful and the tide was falling, we decided to have another picnic lunch from the boat on the way back. When all the packing was done, I donned hip waders again and kayaked out to the Kathy M with Cailey. After tidying up and adding oil to the engine, I pulled anchor and puttered in, concerned about the state of the falling tide. In retrospect, I probably should have chosen a different section of beach to approach, but went with the typical approach to one side of the channel that forms from the trickle of water in front of the lodge. That channel can be a lifesaver, but also dangerous because it can give you a false sense of deep water when everything around it is too shallow (and it’s hard to follow out to deeper water). The tide was falling fast and we were trying to keep the boat floating while not sliding into the channel over our boots at the same time. My mom held the boat off while I finished loading gear and the Johnsons over by kayak, then I hauled the kayak back to the porch as quickly as I could. When I got back, both Ben and my mother were in the water over their boots and it was all we could do to collectively shimmy the boat back and forth to push it off the edges of the channel and eventually into deeper water. It was one of the less pleasant of many unpleasant low tide departures, but everyone took it in stride.

I brought out beers while Mom and Ben changed into drier clothes. Cailey had endured the whole episode on the bow, so we brought her back inside the cabin too, where she promptly went to sleep. We headed out of the port in a mild chop, spotting a whale near the entrance, and soon saw the unmistakable splashing of Dall’s porpoise in the middle of Stephen’s Passage. There were at least four or five of them—probably more, and they were consistently creating their rooster tail spray. We headed in that direction, slowing down well before we got close and passing at a distance in the hopes of enticing them to play. We were unsuccessful, but I was pleased to come across them, only the second group of summertime DPs I’ve come across in the years I’ve been making that trip (the others were last summer in the same area). Maybe they are finally moving back in!

We left the porpoise and headed back to shore to lunch in the lee of the little bight between Snettisham and Limestone Inlet, since the winds were coming from the west. We brought out fruit, brie, bread, crackers, and sausage and relaxed in the sunshine. Before long, we noticed two, then three, then four eagles circling the water a little farther out. Before long there were as many as 15 diving on a bait ball; early on, one eagle flew right past us with at least three or four small fish (I’m guessing smelt) in its talons. We watched them catch and eat their fish and turn around to fish again. We also saw them land in the water repeatedly, which almost looked intentional. Against all expectations, most were able to rise up off the surface and fly away, which I didn’t realize was possible. One eagle must have been too waterlogged to get off the surface and started a long and apparently quite relaxed swim to shore, coming close enough to the boat for use to get a good look at him. A couple of eagles landed on shore near his trajectory and crows gathered when he was a few feet from shore, but he was evidently without fish and they soon scattered.

As we watched the bait ball saga continue, we started to see splashing below the eagles which we thought at first was jumping fish. Instead it turned out to be the splashes of hundreds of Pacific loons as they dove and emerged from the water; I’m not sure if they were there all along, but I hadn’t noticed them as we pulled into the bight (and had actually wondered where they were). No doubt they were pushing the fish to the surface and into the talons of the eagles. We found another enormous cluster of loons off Grave Point as we continued home, but no associated eagles. Another whale blew near Doty Cove as we passed and then before we knew it we were back in the channel and into the harbor with a very sleepy Ayzling in tow. Amazingly, she was the most relaxed of all of us on both boat rides!

Ben and Ayzling

Ayzling and a western toad (Ben's photo)

Complicated boarding maneuvers (Ben's photo)

 
Azling at Snettisham (ben's photo)