Spring on the Adak
And the days pass, and the days pass. A job tiling, installing a floor. Cal does his best to help out on site. The boat gets whacked with 45 knots from the southwest – a battle against the leaks. Back goes the plastic onto the wheelhouse.Sunsets off the deck. Joe and Mom visit – Joe catches a king salmon, grey cod, halibut. King crab broth. Sauerkraut. Dog happy it’s spring, not so sad in the mornings, okay again sleeping by the window. One roommate learns the drums, and the other learns the violin. Jason likes to practice in the cargo hold. They’re both making huge strides.
Justin and Dana visit. We go to the island. It’s magical, that land of elves. I switched my Philly phone number to Alaskan. Joined Club 49 on Alaska Airlines – free checking of bags! They say it takes a year to truly get acclimated after moving. I’m not sure you ever get acclimated to the Adak – she keeps you on your toes, that one. Joe and Mom helped enormously painting the salon. Finally decided it was time to cover all the live wires, although it does take away from some of the drama of sleeping beneath the outlets. Kyle flew in after crashing his plane into Mt. Baker, this time in his new Super Cub. As per usual we made a night of it – and an eve. Thom fought a halibut for an hour and a half while we watched – turned out to be a starfish. Good thing we had raindogs on hand. The herring seiners came in and left – me I’m struggling to wrap my small mind around why Fish & Game allotted 29k tons of herring to the fleet when the fish is twice-frozen sent to China made into fish pellets for fish farms in Chile. You’d think the trollers would take exception. That and salmon feed on herring – it’s like having a mass killing of all your children. For better or worse the herring run petered out, and seiners had to settle with 47% of the quota. And thus the slaughter ended.
Fishing for steelhead out at Sawmill Creek. Bearing witness to land recovering from rape – shock is the word that kept coming back, as I climbed the rocks up to the falls. As if the rocks and moss and pools still couldn’t understand the steel wire and concrete embankments and leftover I-bolts drilled willy-nilly. A Geo Metro tumbled down from a road creekside. The airbag deployed. Turned out someone had dumped a seal in the front seat. Naturally. The girl, drunk, had died.
We took the Sitka Spruce north to haul her out. Got there only to be turned back. Folks said she was “a wet noodle in the slings.” And they wouldn’t risk it. The dogs got a nice ride in the skiff. And it was heartening to get the two Jimmys running.
We planted starters we grew from seed – kale beets brussel sprouts artichokes mesclun arugula kale a variety of spices onions and okra just to be humbled. Made a plot. Put in our starts and it rained for two weeks straight. Plus the ravens couldn’t stop eating all the hops in our soil. So there went that. Going to get some rebar and PVC and made some hoops and plastic off the plot. If you don’t get it at first try and try again. Ah. Not much comes easy here. Stole two blueberry bushes from Rick and got them planted on the boat. Along with lettuce and a number of other starters seeded in the wheelhouse. Although, on a rainy day, reading about the Kik’sadi clan, the exhibition pointed out that, because of the plentiful food in the area, the arts among the Tlingit flourished. Not so hardscrabble as up north. Surely, harvesting licorice root and devil’s club buds, wild cucumber and fiddleheads and the land opens herself, this becomes apparent. On that same note put up a hammock topside. At the end of the days it’s so niiiiice.
It’s the light that gets me in the end. After the last dish has been done and the counter is wiped down and the fish are frozen and the veggies pickled and the sauerkraut brineing and you turn around – yeah, it’s definitely the light.
