Snettisham 2013 - 5: Friend Weekend
June 14-16

Amanda, Chris, and Cailey on the beach

Amanda was visiting town and the Ronquil was out of commission while it sat waiting to be welded whole again, so I managed to borrow the Kathy M from my parents for a group trip to Snettisham. We left the harbor at 4:35 on Friday, fueled up at Petro Marine, and cruised down the harbor with a combination of beer, wine, and carrot/orange juice in hand, each to his own preference. The weather was glorious and a westerly took us across Taku Inlet and south. Dall’s porpoise made an appearance outside Taku Harbor, a black bear walked along the beach near the base of the road to the Crystal Mine (fronted by a whale), and we passed another whale around the corner of Sentinel Point. Surprisingly, we saw no groups of loons. We arrived at the homestead tired from a long week and a long boat ride and got everyone to shore efficienty and without going over the tops of xtratuffs; by the time I returned from anchoring up the boat, the gear was all hauled up and folks were scattered picking out cabins. Even Cailey stayed behind, which made kayaking a bit simpler. Myron graciously took Cottonwood (the only one without running water), Amanda took Mink, and Rob and Katie took Harbor Seal. I helped find keys and showed everyone the water valves, then returned to get the systems started in the lodge. That evening, Amanda made a delicious pumpkin pasta dish and everyone headed to bed relatively early.

The next morning we trickled in and breakfasted on Rob’s decadent cinnamon rolls. They’re doused in cream before being baked, and Rob had an excess of cream on hand, so Katie made her usual amazing mochas with cream. They were delectable, and in combination with the cinnamon rolls, probably the reason I ate very little else until dinner! The day was again hot and sunny and we all wound up wandering down the beach past the eagle tree; earlier we'd seen several eagles clustered on the sandbars and passed a flashy juvenile perched under the nest. Chris showed Amanda Garnet Rock while I lounged and Myron and Rob explored father downriver. I found a large flat rock that was littered with exposed garnets. Schools of fry (mostly in fives) meandered close to shore and I discovered neat pockets of open areas between the beach fringe trees and the cliffs behind. We relaxed and sunbathed and commented on how strangely Cailey was acting. Everyone who knew her had noticed how subdued she’d been on the boat ride down the day before and she’d starting whining and pacing uncomfortably that evening. I’d let her out of the cabin at 10:30 p.m. and laid down again in bed, expecting her to wake me up a few minutes later when she came back on the porch. Instead, I woke up at 12:30 and walked to the lodge to find her there. She came to bed then, but got up at 3:30 and whined to get out again. Although she returned to the porch periodically the rest of the night, she fled when I called her to come back inside. Consequently, she was no doubt tired and possibly dehydrated by then. She refused to eat breakfast and didn’t seem to be drinking water.

As usual, I was barefoot, and wading in the shallow water on the way back was delightful. Cailey seemed to take to Katie, following her back to the lodge and eating her entire breakfast from Katie’s hand (refusing to take it from the bowl). It was after noon, then, and I decided I’d paint the shed with the gallon of paint I’d hastily purchased practically on the way to the harbor. It was probably the quickest color choice I’d ever made! Amanda decided to help me, so we doped up, lit some mosquito coils, and got to work on the back wall while listening to music on my iPhone. She used the roller while I cut in. The wood was dry and porous and soaked up an alarming amount of paint, so in the end we managed to only half cover the last (downriver) wall. I wound up using the second roller after I finished cutting in and Rob took over with the brush. Katie joined us and chatted for a while, and all in all it was very pleasant to work in the shade.

While the four of us were engaged at the shed, Chris had taken a beer and walked into the river and was standing waste deep in the blazing sun; people migrated to the water nearby after the shed was done. Though I wanted to join everyone in the sun, I thought I’d better clean the cedar on the porch of the lodge so it had time to dry before I stained it the next day (not knowing how the summer would progress, I felt I needed to take advantage of the sun--the new cedar trim on the gable triangle was yet untreated and I feared for its integrity). After several full circuits of the property, I finally found the hose right where I thought it was in Cottonwood, rinsed off all the cedar, covered the deck in plastic, then mixed a bleach solution in my sprayer and sprayed the wood down while wearing my enormous camouflage rain jacket with the hood up. After letting it sit for a little while I rinsed it off, with many apologies to its numerous arthropod inhabitants.

Myron had joined Chris in the water and I joined everyone else lounging around at the edge of the river. Seals watched us and approached in formation. Still suffering, Cailey sat in the middle of a flat rock next to me and fell asleep three times, first falling to the right (and catching herself), then the left, then to the back. Poor thing. I did finally manage to entice her into the lodge a little later—possibly from sheer exhaustion—where she fell asleep standing up before I coaxed her onto her dog bed. Though she flopped down, she wouldn’t put her head down, so Chris finally picked her up and plopped her next to him on the couch where they snuggled together wrapped in a blanket (Chris was chilled from lingering in the 40 degree water) and Cailey finally seemed to nap.

That evening Rob grilled fantastic venison burgers outside along with some Sweetheart sockeye and kabobs. In the deep grass around us we heard the same intense squeaking sounds we'd heard several times earlier around the stone path and I wonderd what rodent/shrew drama was taking place just out of sight. I ate my burger inside with Cailey, who was by then starting to warm back up to me and was eating more (she was even romping a little with sticks near the fire). After I hand fed her a few bites of her food, she ate the rest of her dinner from the bowl and I gave her a bit of salmon and venison for good measure. We roasted a few marshmallows around the fire, enjoying the soft and beautiful evening coming down around us, but were eventually driven inside by the mosquitoes. Barely apparent the weekend before, they’d come out in full force. We chatted a bit inside and went to bed.

Breakfast in the lodge	Immature eagle	A rock covered in garnets
Rob and Myron explore the beach	Amanda and Cailey	Katie tries to cheer Cailey up
Chris looks over the river	Katie and Cailey walk back to the lodge together	Wild irises blooming on the beach
Cailey finally eats from Katie's hand	Amanda and Rob painting the shed	Chris and Myron confabbing in the river
A spider on its web over the kayak	Salmon and venison burgers	Everyone around the campfire
Cailey still feels touch in the evening	Evening on the river	Thinking about railings...

The next morning, Rob outdid himself again with fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. Katie, Rob, Amanda, and Myron all went for a kayak while I stained the porch, finishing just as the last kayakers were returning. I was glad to find the paint brush extender for accessing the higherst parts, barely reaching the peak from the deck below on a step ladder. I also carried one of the prefab porch railing posts to the future bridge site to see what they might look like for the foundation of a bridge railing system later in the summer. We had a picnic lunch inside, then packed up and headed back to town on the Kathy M, passing one whale at the entrance to Snettisham and another toward Doty Cove.

Enjoying the weather at the edge of the river