Light (or the lack of)

This is a short story of lights in remote area.  I'm not including any pictures since our camera's aren't the best at taking low light shots.......

......this morning at 3:00am we headed out to the processor to pack up an order (shellfish) headed for town. The sea planes are booked up with all the summer help heading back to America (as we call it), last minute tourists and fisherman so we had to take the ferry over and have to get there rather early 7:00am. It's a half hour boat ride and 2 hour drive through the mountains to get to the terminal. Our summer season is winding down....

......back to the light.... while riding to the processor in the boat the wake of the boat was glowing a bright green...like a glow stick.. where ever the water was disturbed, the droplets for the bow splashing out to the sides, the waves off the stern and the prop wash from behind the motor was really glowing.  This is bioluminescence caused by a certain kind of phytoplanketon in the water called Noctiluca scintillans. We a have a big time bloom of it going on right now........

....so we got the order packed and JR and Zach head off toward town.....It was starting to get a little morning light now, it's overcast so it's not like the sun is peeking through, just not pitch black like earlier and I can see the outline of the mountains around us, the tops of them were covered in clouds....what kinda dawned on me at this very moment was there wasn't a light anywhere to be seen......no light pollution, no glow in the sky from a city off in the distance, nobody, nothing........ Now Linn and I have traveled all over through the mountains down in America and we usually see lights sprinkled all over them at night from the distance......

......back to the light.....or lack of ......couple nights ago I was outside and it was clear out......no moon up yet and the stars were shining so bright just twinkling at us. The milky way was shining super bright...the sky looks so big too. Thought we saw a UFO darting around .....but that's another story for later.

The morning is finally here.....foggy, overcast, still, peaceful.........

here's one picture for you since it's getting light out...

Great Blue Heron on the point at the right side. Fog is rolling in.

Alaska....It is either all light (summer) or all dark (winter).....in our part of the state it gets to about 3 hours of dark in the summer....the sun may not be up in the sky that much the glow of the light is.... opposite is true in the winter and can get kinda of gloomy if you are one of those people that need their sunshine.

Our sunsets are another facet of light that deserve it's own chapter.....last night was a beauty.

Looking west from our deck. The far tree line is over a mile away.

Shot of the moon and must have moved the camera before the lens shut. Kinda looks like a shooting star.

A Civilized Weekend

This is how a lot of folks come in for the Festival.

Well, Ma and Pa packed up the skiff with handmade goods and a cooler and floated off to the island for a weekend Seafood Festival and Arts & Crafts Show.  I don’t think they will make a song about it, but a fun time was had by one and all.

Local art carving.

It was held in Coffman Cove, an ex-logging camp/fishing port turned “town” which is what all our communities on POW Island are.  I won’t say it is small but I’m pretty sure all residents have to go off island to find spouses!  Well, all 165 Coffman Coveans pulled together a great event.

More carving, salmon run.

It was 100% rain all three days but we were under tent and no one up here seems to mind a little water.  It would be nice if it were a warm rain…  They pulled in 30 some venders and some wonderful raffle prizes.  With 165 people your raffle odds go way up!  I won two wildlife ink prints and a $25 gift certificate to the local diner – it almost paid for two hamburgers for our lunch one day!

Linn whooping up a hat.

But who wanted hamburgers with all that seafood.  I couldn’t believe the first meal, Lar got fried halibut which we eat at home 3 X per week.  He said he wanted to taste how someone else cooked it, something about not burned…  Over the weekend we had our choice of oysters, B B Q salmon, clam chowder in sour dough bread bowls, shrimp gumbo and a vender flew in fresh fruit from America!!  Her lines were the longest.  We tasted peaches and Washington sweet cherries!

Linn's Bare skin blankets on display.

We have a friend here who makes stone jewelry and I helped at her booth.  I sold all my fish shaped pot holders and debuted my animal hats.  They were a big hit.  Other venders were a varied lot and a lot different than you would see down there.   There were wood carvers, rustic furniture makers, and beachcombers “found” art.  There were bone artists ( I will leave that description up to your imagination) and several native, tribal art booths.  I am not a fan of the stylized red and black animal spirit print but to each their own. A gal made waterproof fabric bags called Mermaid Purses that were cute.  Christmas spoiler alert!  There is a wonderful soap maker on island and a beader that works with pinhead sized beads.  There was even a tie died tee shirt maker who never left the sixties!  A woman who had sewn “Grandma” style full aprons sold out – is this a trend that I missed?

Cat with all her stuff, she had half the tent and was a big hit.

Plus they had entertainment!  It was listed as a battle of the bands, but no bands showed up.  We were instead serenaded by several Bob Dillons with guitar.  They had a hilarious fish topic poetry slam (who would have guessed?  Fishermen do spend a lot of time alone on their boats with thought of fish.) and fireworks over the Bay.  I love fireworks!

This young lady posed for me, (if you look close) she is wearing rain gear under her dress. 

 Besides set up and breakdown and all other grunt work, Larry got to walk around and talk to new people.  He took his walkingstick with all the National Parks emblems on it.  It is a real conversation piece.

Yes indeed,  A great time was had by all.

Tents with band playing bluegrass in the center tent.

Larry said to add that on the way home we sneaked (lets not use that word since we weren't supposed to go that way, lets use) took short cut on to the main road to home that is closed for construction to check on their progress.  It is ten miles that is being paved with a finish date of 2016.  After all summer they now have a whooping 3 mi. prepped then is it mud slides and rock the rest of the way.  The current detour is a one lane forest service road that won't be passable in the snow...should be an interesting four winters 'round here.

Something is Smelling Fishy 'round Here

We have inadvertently discovered, (but then, isn’t that how all the best discoveries happen?) the most noxious smell on earth.  I am talking, eye watering, nose curling, leave the room, stink.  We could hold up banks, take over small countries, or chase away obnoxious, freeloading company.   Not that we often get company of any kind,

The substance you ask that causes such a reaction?  It is rotten bear brain paste.  Like I said it was by accident.  Zach and I had been out turning the compost pile and adding rotting fish, starfish, and dead mussels.  Foolish us, we thought that was the smell that we brought home.  We took turns scrubbing and taking off pieces of outer wear but we couldn’t solve the smell.

Finally on another trip out the door I noticed that the bear skull Jerry had recently brought up from a crab pot was dripping gray pasty matter from the brain stem.  One whiff of that and the mystery was solved.  We don’t have to burn our clothes, just drain the bear skull.

The skull is out to be shipped with the pelt to be turned into a rug.  I wonder what the postal worker will do with that package???