It has been a very long day! I'm sitting in the rocking chair close to the wood stove, the chill of a clear April day having seeped in once I stopped working, even wrapped in my quilt on the porch. Cailey is next to me, apparently equally exhausted. I'd launched the Ronquil in a windy downpour several weeks ago with the hope of opening Snettisham the first weekend in April following a week of stunning sunny weather that cleared the memory of February snows and wiped away my expectations for a late spring. Alas, the weather had other ideas as a storm swept through with slush, rain, and high winds, but I was mostly ready to go at that point. The next weekend I went to Olympia to visit Dru, then promptly fell sick to the COVID that Ezra brought home from Folk Fest dances I'd missed while traveling. Friday through Monday I convalesced, each day calm and sunny, the buds beginning to appear among the alders, and the first warblers (Townsend's and yellow-rumped) arrived on the avalanche while I lay on the couch. By Wednesday I was feeling much better and the weather was holding until Sunday, so Thursday morning (today), I was up early, gave the dog a quick walk, then hastened to load the bulk of my gear into my car and speed to the harbor so I wouldn't be loading gear at the supreme ebb of the -1.5' tide at 8:45. I took the heavier cart down the steep ramp first, successfully, figuring the lighter one would be a piece of cake. What I'd forgotten were the two batteries in the front which nearly drug the cart from my hands as it took the first plunge. I had to hang on to the rail with one hand and make several stops to rest along the way with the right wheel of the cart secure against the walking bars.

But quickly I had the carts to the boat house and everything loaded and ready for Cailey and my departure. Back home I took a shower, gathered my last items, made one quick walk up the avalanche (rewarded with my first Lincoln's sparrow song of the year), then headed out to Western Auto to buy flares which I'd discovered this morning were out of date. Ezra met me at the harbor and took my last load of gear down while I parked the car with Cailey. The day was beautiful and off we went at 10:16 with a brisk westerly coming down the channel. The forecast was for light and variable winds, which I'd hoped meant a glassy spring ride, but at least it would be behind me if it wasn't. So there I was, musing about the trip in front of me, idling along the breakwater outside Harris Harbor, when the engine sputtered and stopped. I headed to the back of the boat to discover that the fuel hose had disengaged from the engine--must not have secured it properly last time. And what a good thing that I didn't! What I also noticed was that the well just under the fuel line had oil in it and there was oil draining from a seam above the lower unit. My engine was leaking oil! Great.

The wind was rapidly taking me toward Harris, so I got the engine running again (thankfully without any trouble) and pulled up to the southernmost float just inside, took some more pictures, and texted Scott Lawless, my faithful mechanic. To my amazement, he called within moments and said he was on his way to take a look, though warning me that we would probably need to trailer the boat to do any proper work. Looking at the boat full of two and a half cartloads of goods and much rapidly diminishing hope, I was not pleased with this news, but there was nothing to do but wait. I took off my survival suit and base layer shirt, as the temperature in the harbor was pleasant despite the persistent breeze, and soon Scott showed up. Since this was the boat's first run of the year, he was pretty sure it wasn't anything major (after giving it some thought on the way in), since he'd serviced it last fall, and he had a few guesses of best-case scenarios. He took the cowling off and quickly found he was correct. The oil cap was secure, but the dipstick for checking the oil level was not, so once the engine got going, it rapidly lost oil through the dip stick opening. So the trip wasn't off after all! Scott has come through for me so many times in the past, and this was no exception. He was dedicated to fixing this as quickly as possible and getting us underway. With the problem identified, he sped back to his shop for oil, a spray bottle of Dawn, and a bag of rags. While he was away, I took Cailey on a walk at her own pace down the float finger, up the ramp, and along the grass to the porta potty and then back. I had enough time to run the kicker for a while and break out a warm beer which I finished after Scott arrived. We chatted as he refilled the oil (leaving me with the rest of the bottle) and cleaned the engine and well as well as he could with the boat in the water. It looked cleaner than it had before.

Thanks to Scott's great customer service, we were underway again at noon. Where I promptly ran into a brisk southeasterly coming up the channel. It's not the first time this has happened, but it's always startling for the wind to switch so abruptly. So we knocked against this persistent chop, uncertain what our future held. Thankfully, it died down as we neared the end of the channel. Just as we were getting up to full speed again, I began to notice very large murrelets in groups on the water all around us. Common murres! Taku Inlet is the place I see murres most often, but I had never seen this many. I stopped to do a quick bird survey and counted at least 52. And then we were off again, encountering a light westerly coming from the back side of Douglas which took us right into a northerly coming out of the spectacularly snowy Taku, seas which (probably combined) hung with us all the way down Stephen's Passage to the port. I'd forgotten to give Cailey dramamine before we left, and slowed down from Grave Point down as she seemed to be feeling ill. On the way we passed another huge assembly south of Swimming Eagle Cove, this time of short-billed gulls (hundreds surely), then another of Bonaparte's gulls just inside the port. I saw one whale north of Grand Island, and only a handful of murrelets.

I was relieved to see that the lodge appeared intact from the water as we passed through grebes and buffleheads and gulls and scoters in the inlet. In fact, it looked perfect. I could see speckles on the grass toward the rocky point and guessed they were the mallards who often haunt the shore here in the spring. Indeed, they flew as we approached the beach, all 75 or so of them! Two American pipits buzzed me as I began unloading and I later saw a flock of about 25.

As quickly as I could I unloaded my prodigious gear, anchored the boat in the choppy inlet, carried everything up, and began the agonizing process of opening. For her part, Cailey was scampering around the property and burying and unburying treats and seemed to be enjoying herself after the long morning. I was exhausted by then and my hunger only partly sated by the bread, potato chips, and pumpkin seeds I'd scavenged on the ride. I took all the gear inside (which looked just as I'd left it), unveiled the outhouse, fetched the ladder, and got ready to put up the chimney before I went inside to light the pilots. The stove started beautifully as usual, and eventually I heated up some Indian food to finish lunch and rested there for just a little while before getting back at it. The chimney went up well due to my efforts to simplify it last fall, but I struggled mightily to get it to mate with the chimney inside, but it was eventually secure. I then carried bedding and the drill to Hermit Thrush to put up the chimney there, open the valves on the diesel line, and make the bed, discovering on the way that the huge fallen tree across the middle of the property had slumped a few feet over the winter, so the path underneath it to the outhouse is now a low crouch. So far, that is the only damage I've seen (other than the total annihilation of the potato mounds I'd carefully tended last fall). I went across the bridge instead of under the log and got Hermit Thrush ready for the evening, opening up the outhouse in the process. By then I was really wearing down and the sun had crept behind the mountain (4:45). I had one more thing I wanted to do--internet, the scariest of the systems to deal with. I hooked up the radio, hooked up the batteries, and turned it on. Five lights, good! But it never made any attempt to send or receive, and that's where it rests tonight, really the only disappointment in the many systems here. Cailey and I curled up on the couch on the porch to rest, me starting the book I've been saving for opening trip, surprised to find that the mosquitos were so persistent that I had to fetch a mosquito coil. I started a fire inside, anticipating the chill, and was grateful for it later when we retreated inside. I heated up some water to wash my face and have a little instant oatmeal to accompany my other snacks for dinner and finished unpacking everything I'd brought while it heated, and here I am wrapping this up. I'd started to install the sink earlier today, but ran out of steam, so that project will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to working tomorrow, but perhaps it will seem better in the morning! The wind always puts me on edge and I hope to find some calm hours in the next few days.

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We made it to Hermit Thrush around 8:30 pm and quickly got a fire going. It started thrumming and turned bright orange inside as it sometimes does quite alarmingly and I realized I'd forgotten to remove the wadded tinfoil from the air intake outside (probably unrelated). I turned the stove off and removed the tinfoil until it calmed down, then started it again at a lower setting and it ran smoothly.  Cailey very much wanted to sleep in my side of the bed as usual but I coaxed her to the other side, covered her up, and she was out like a light. I was similarly tired, but managed to hook up the electric light with the battery I'd lugged over and read until 10:00. I slept in my pajamas with my fleece onesie over the top and was warm, or slightly overheated all night. Cailey shifted only three times. I managed to get back to sleep after waking at 5:45, but loud footsteps on the roof woke me up a bit after 7:00. Intrigued, I stepped outside and was surprised to startle a female varied thrush up there! I'm not sure what exactly she was doing to make so much noise--rhythmically pecking for grubs in the accumulated duff, perhaps?

I was up then, so dressed and packed and headed to the lodge. The flats spread out before me, begging to me admired, but the porch held no allure. Neither did breakfast. I'd determined that, since the modem wasn't making any effort to send or receive, the problem must exist between the satellite dish and the modem--either the cable or the radio. After feeding Cailey, I decided to trouble shoot. I first did a quick visual survey of the cable and found nothing obviously wrong with it, but the cable end that connected to the radio seemed rather worn, the copper wire receded into the connector, and I'd noticed when hooking it up that the nonconducting gel I put inside was seeping out the bottom of the connector where the cable enters, which I hadn't noticed before. Perhaps I needed to replace the cable end, which is one of the first things the Hughesnet techs always suggest.

I dug out the bag of spare cable ends and the tools--two sets, as I'd bought a full set for my parent's set up at the Taku cabin which was never used. It had been a long time and I couldn't quite remember how to do it, so I looked for instructions in all the Hughesnet tech material I had on my computer, all to no avail. I fiddled around with the tool that splices the cable, experimenting on other cable ends, until I remembered that it should cut in two depths--one to extract all but the inner copper wire and the other to remove a thinner layer to reveal the bright silvery core. Only then did the crimper function properly, connecting the cable end to the cable. When I was confident in that function, I tried it on the end I needed to replace and could not get the cable cut correctly. I fought and fought with it and tried several times, but it would not work, even though I'd just done it with another cable. Increasingly frustrated, I retreated inside and had a tiny pity party during which I decided I'd better have some breakfast, discovering that the fridge had stopped working in the night as I pulled out a yogurt. This didn't help the mood.

I finally opened up the cutter I'd bought for my parents and gave it a go and it worked beautifully, first on a test cable and then on the actual cable. I think perhaps the other one is dull. I crimped it, filled it with gel, hooked it up, turned on the modem, and started sweeping the porch. When I stopped to pick up the pieces of cable and parts I'd left on the edge of the porch, I came back inside to drop them off and found all five lights on the modem. It couldn't be...could it?? I opened my laptop, plugged it in, and read some emails....that were sent today! Just like that, all I needed was a new cable end. What should have taken me five minutes probably took an hour and a lot of frustration, but it worked, and what an enormous relief it was. I wrote Ezra and my mother, and then headed out for the next big project: water.

Cailey wasn't enthusiastic about coming up to the creek with me, but I encouraged her, as I like how she stands guard while I work, sitting on the ledge nearby and looking down over the forest, her back to me. She lagged behind but eventually caught up with me with leaps and bounds as I closed the two cabin valves on the way up. I'd left the hose under the log where Guo Zhong and I had placed it last summer and was happy to see that it was still in a cavity, as the rest of the log had collapsed onto the ground/creek bed. I wrestled with it a little bit, as it was difficult to place the end of it in water well over the level of the hose where it exited the log and entered the creek. I excavated that area as much as I could to lower it, but the hose was resting on a large root I couldn't cut. I reduced its length somewhat by adding a bend lower down where the first valve is, and bent the end into a little waterfall, weighing it down with large rocks and damming the area a tiny bit until I thought I might feel water flowing through. Skeptical, I retreated to the valve, closed, it, and immediately heard the water backing up and felt the pleasant rush as it released when I opened the valve again. It'll need work as soon as the water level drops when the spring melt ends, but I hope to return perhaps soon and cut the root and further refine the hose's position.

Back at the lodge, water was rushing out of the hose valve and I soon had the filters set up and water coming out of the sink (I'd finished installing the sink and drain connections earlier). It worked beautifully, except that I'd installed the sink backwards and had to turn the faucet toward the window for water to flow! Less than impressed with myself, I shut the water off and undid (and redid) all the uncomfortable under-the-sink but over-the-head work. I love plumbing, but not that part of it. A wave of relief and it was done, and I could begin cleaning up the area. That started a chain reaction of the final tidying of the lodge in the spring which culminated in tucking the filters for the three currently un-manned cabins under the table and wiping down all the tables in the room from the winter's dust (late this afternoon).

I finished sweeping the front deck around 10:30 and declared that it was finally time for tea on the porch, a proposition that had only then become enticing now that all the systems were in place. Oh, that includes the fridge. After the water was installed, I checked the tank for the fridge and found it empty--a good sign! After replacing it, I decided to give it a quick try and was shocked to find that it started right up. Wonderful. I made myself a cup of cafe francais with a bit of flavoring from another special coffee and instant expresso and set myself up on the deck with the spotting scope to observe the many sea ducks and grebes on the inlet and the pipits on the beach. The water was fairly calm and I scanned back and forth looking at buffleheads, mergansers, and horned grebes (and, I'm pretty sure, a common loon). It was a bit frustrating as I played around with the tripod and then found myself unable to get a clear focus, remembering how everything usually looks like a first class documentary. I even scrounged up the manual (not among my stash of manuals in the cabinet but it the scope's case), but learned nothing. I'm afraid it got out of whack when it was played with last summer, or perhaps it is smudged on the lenses, which I haven't cleaned yet. In any event, it was good, but not as satisfying as I'd hoped. Along with the water birds, there was a flock of a dozen pipits gaily chirruping on the beach, a Townsend's warbler, wren, and varied thrush sang, and a pair of small birds flew into the trees and then joined the pipits, but more streaky and with pink legs. They eluded further investigations. A male hummingbird came through and I delighted in watching him feed from the salmonberry blossoms--ignoring, for the moment, the newly-hung feeders (he and the female with the large throat patch both came by the feeders later in the day). After the bird-watching and the quesadilla, I curled up and read for a long while, expecting a nap but with too much caffeine to seal the deal (probably). Instead I stayed and read, slowly shedding clothing until I couldn't stand the heat anymore and came inside for a few minutes with Cailey. I wasn't ready for more rest, though, so I installed the water filters at Hermit Thrush, removed the plywood from the back porch where it protects the wood from winter splatters, then started raking and just kept at it until all the trails were completed. Then I released Cailey from her confinement and we wandered around the beach meadow, me watching the gorgeous brown and orange butterflies (two varieties I think) flutter around and sneaking looks at the pipits and the grebes feeding close to shore, Cailey impishly carrying her orange and blue ball and repeatedly starting, but never finishing, burying it. I stopped by the new cottonwood and was cheered to see it budding out boldly and doing quite well on its perhaps-now permanent land.

It really was a gorgeous evening, but as the sun set I grew hungry again and, when I spotted overwintered mac and cheese, knew what dinner would be! I fed Cailey (helping remove the ball that was stuck on a tooth--not sure if that's the reason she never buried it!), then boiled brussel sprouts with the noodles and had a feast on the porch while a fire warmed the inside of the lodge a little. It doesn't feel as cold as last night and just a couple of pieces of wood have made it extremely comfortable now several hours after sundown. Perhaps the early warmth is beginning to seep in, or the refrigerator pilot is doing its usual side duty of heating the lodge. Either way, I'll take it. I worked on my laptop for a while, responding to some work emails, texting and streaming for a few delicious minutes. Now it's 7:30 and the sun is bright against the brown avalanche across the river, the waterfalls still covered in snow. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds.

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I stretched a bit before bed and we had another fairly peaceful night, sleeping later than yesterday. This time, there was no aversion to porch life and I ate some breakfast and read a little before a hermit thrush stopped by and shook things up. I'd seen him before, but not well enough to make a 100% identification, but this time she stood still long enough for me to see her thrush features and red-brown tail. No singing yet, a fairly early sighting, so I decided to start a survey and, if I did that, may as well make the COASST survey I was planning on, since it was less than an hour to low tide. I dropped off the empty propane tank at the boat, then continued to the edge of the first big channel (over 400 paces) where I could see multitudes of Bonaparte's gulls. I counted those, then headed down almost to the very edge of the flats (but it got a bit soft and I shied away) and stared and stared at all the seabirds to the edge of my ability. In addition to the hundreds of Bonaparte's gulls there were common mergansers, over 60 horned grebes, two red-necked grebes, Barrow's goldeneyes, buffleheads, and three green-winged teals who flew in. I made my way toward shore until I was satisfied I'd identified what I could, then turned upriver. The eagle's nest looks in decent shape, but I couldn't discern whether it was active.

After passing the boat, I angled toward the opposite shore and clusters of what turned out to be mainly short-billed gulls. Out in the middle of the flats, I suddenly noticed tiny creatures strewn about the sand--small, krill-like crustaceans, their black eyes bulging out from their tiny bodies. There must have been millions of them, spread out and clustered in every hollow of the sand in the dozens. All through the middle of the river I saw them, yet there were few footprints. Every bird in the valley who would find such a meal enticing must be fully sated--or blind! The chill wind and overcast sky which had urged my fingers gratefully into the fleece lining of my special down Snetty vest was no longer a match for my sandbar exertions. I wanted to turn around as usual when I reached the grassy point, but the river was lower than I'd ever seen and it looked like I could reach the next rocky point up, which I've never done before, so I pressed on, doffing my vest and, later, my flannel as I continued to warm up. Cailey had stopped long before where I first encountered the arthropods, but unlike recent summers, caught up with me repeatedly. I trundled up to the point, looked out at the early spring scene up the river where only one major channel seemed apparently, crossing the river from the avalanche to the opposite side, then turned back along the shore. Here there were many more tiny creatures washed up, and crow prints.

Passing the grassy point, a group of short-billed gulls had descended on the middle flats and were apparently feeding near the area I'd walked through, which tickled me, but they were skittish and didn't let me come near enough to take a photo. I kept worrying about Cailey's legs, but every time she caught up, she seemed to be walking or trotting or loping just fine. Only weeks before I'd proclaimed her 100%, but I was still uneasy about her overdoing it. Along the way I'd also heard a couple more Townsend's warblers, a number of wrens, and more thrushes. We walked a little more than three miles and the morning was late when we returned. But not so late that I couldn't do some chores! There were a few odds and ends I wanted to get done but which I was unenthusiastic about, so I just tackled them. The clouds had cleared a bit and the day was now warm. I donned gloves and tucked the plywood from the back porch and the smoke stack opening under the lodge, then put together the canopy grilling shelter. This didn't go as smoothly as it did last year, partly because holding the connecting braces up while screwing them in to the first upright is tricky, but also because I couldn't remember how they connected and then screwed it in upsidedown the first time. Once I figured it out, it went well, and I then made notes on the instructions I'd left myself for the next time (there are no nuts on the braces! and make sure the curve of the braces is on the bottom!).

When raking around the property I'd also considered how many little sticks were lying around which would be perfect dry kindling (which the new stove loves), so I gathered a box and then some and stashed them on the back porch along with the grass from the meadow I'd gathered yesterday. By then it was well after noon and I finally made a quesadilla and ate it in luxury on the porch with a cold cerveza and books, lingering there well into the afternoon. The clouds came and went, cooling me off quickly when they shut off the hot sun, so I never overheated as I did yesterday, especially when I moved out of the sun and into the shadier section near the door. Though the battery was only down to 88%, I went ahead and put the panels out for the last few hours of light and there was enough direct sun to more or less fully charge it.

After checking the forecast again and making sure that an escape is, so far, likely tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and sleep in the lodge tonight as has become my habit so I can linger on the porch and don't have to clean Hermit Thrush in the morning. Thus, I headed over there to close up, bringing along the swede saw. My first stop was to cut off the branch from the huge fallen tree that overhangs the trail up the outhouse which I have several times struck with force as I stand up after crouching or crawling beneath. No more! Then I noted the many large branches now overhanging the trail to the bridge and decided they should be cut with a chainsaw and perhaps even bucked up, they along with the dead tree down from the other side. On the bridge, I replaced the three railing pieces that had been knocked off as usual, pulled one of the two large branches still attached to the tree which were leaning over the bridge down into the gully and out of the way, and sawed off the third. I swept off the large debris, so it is now more passable, though still not in great shape, the uphill log sagging even more badly in the middle.

Then I cleaned and closed up Hermit Thrush and headed back to the lodge, stopping to cut the dead alder that was leaning over the boardwalk in two large pieces, the larger of which might want to be bucked up as well. Many pleasant little projects. I rewarded myself with a glass of wine on the porch as the sun went behind the clouds and read a little as the sky went overcast again and the wind picked up, coming more from upriver than Gilbert Bay, but rain is in the forecast for later. I've been seeing ruby-crowned kinglets and hearing them chip, but today they were singing lustily, often right here, and the hummingbird population has grown with much more activity and at least two of each gender.

Now I'm inside an increasingly warm cabin with some Indian food and two slices of sourdough bread in my belly. I watched a little telly during and after dinner, and now it is getting on in the evening. It's been a good opening--success in systems, so much more relaxed with even just an extra night to spend here. Tomorrow there is little I have to do except pack up, but I hope to make some potato mounds now that I've scoped out various sources of materials. The wind really kicked up a bit ago and now the inlet is a little gray and the water disturbed, but the branches are still again. The land could actually use a little rain, though I hope it doesn't bring too much in the way of seas tomorrow.

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I slept somewhat fitfully on the couch, Cailey at my feet, and didn't feel like doing much of anything when I finally got up. I packed a little, had some breakfast, and sat out on the porch looking over a wonderfully calm inlet and a falling tide. The Bonaparte's gulls were making a pleasant racket, pipits were on the beach, and I finally had a good look at the brown bird with the reddish tail that had been flitting around all weekend and which I'd assumed to be a hermit thrush. Nope! They/it was a fox sparrow, their face two-toned like a song sparrow and their breast very dark. The hummingbird action had increased and I had a magnificent but brief look at a Lincoln's sparrow, its head blazing chestnut in the sun. I made myself some jasmine tea--weak from overwintering--and was pleased when the caffeine hit with a much-delayed reaction and everything came into focus. I still didn't want to work, but I roused myself under the overcast sky and made some potato mounds, discovering that there were remnants of most of them in situ after all. I re-created the ones on the downriver side of the path large enough to fit maybe five potatoes each, mostly with grass from close by and some from nearer the second cottonwood. I made more in similar places to the upriver two, but expanded the more upriver mound to a whole row using grass from farther upriver where it lay over the new growth in huge mats. I also picked a couple bucketfuls of seaweed from the thin line of wrack, but didn't take the time to mix it all together. I can do that when I bring the starts down.

By then the overcast sky had broken and I was sweating profusely in the sunshine. From there I forced myself to tackle another task I was dreading but which I thought would be much better accomplished now than next time--washing the lodge and shed windows and replacing the UV reflective stickers. Last year a warbler suicided right after I'd done it, so I figured that the fewer warblers and thrushes were about (the usual victims), the less chance the same thing would happen again. The whole project--including replacing batteries in the bridge cam and shutting off the water to Hermit Thrush--took just half an hour. I finished cleaning and packing, had a quesadilla for lunch with frozen beans, and finally enjoyed a beer on the porch as the tide trickled in. We were underway at 2:45 and puttered down the inlet through the myriad birds. Cautiously optimistic about the seas, I felt more leisurely than usual, cruising off the sea lion haulout to see if they were about, finding about 60 lions there including one huge beach master on the end. Then we swung through Harlequin Cove, after which we slowed to bump through the southerly seas as we cruised through a large cluster of Pacific loons at the entrance. From there the seas took us all the way home, no more than a foot or two the whole distance, a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable ride. I was so hot when loading the boat that I wore only a flannel over my t-shirt--and that forced--which was comfortable most of the way. Past Arden I donned my rain jacket but was too lazy to take off my gear to add anything else beneath and wound up quite chilly. The lone cruise ship in port was just leaving Juneau Harbor as I came in and we passed right alongside the red marker off the Rock Dump, a fairly narrow part of the channel. It was probably the closest I've passed a cruise ship, so I waved a hello to the skipper and then was waved at by just about everyone on their balconies, which was a treat. One was taking a video which I imagined was of me (though it could have been of Douglas). I wonder what they thought I'd been doing? I was home and showering by 5:30, enormously more relaxed than I had been in some time and tickled with the growth in the garden while I'd been gone and the hugely successful opening.

 
Common murres in Taku Inlet