Camplife

Teepee time and fireworks - oh my! With no adverse weather conditions for the entire trip we really did not need the tents to protect us from the elements.  But, funnily enough, it was so hot at times that we often retreated to the cook tent teepee to read in the cool shade that it provided.  When we opened both doors we often even got a cross-ventilation breeze.

In the evenings after dinner it has become a tradition to cook up a s'more over the wood stove for dessert.  For this purpose I think the kids prefer the wood stove over a campfire because it is a more controlled environment.  It is is easier to make perfect s'mores.

Another evening event that was a HUGE hit with Stuey was fireworks.  Stuey has officially discovered whistling bottle rockets.  No more of the big stuff for him - from now on he just wants me to buy whistling bottle rockets.  On the evening of the third while Mike P and I lit off the big stuff, Stuey added to the chaos by sending up a constant stream of often poorly aimed bottle rockets.
Patrick

S'mores on the woodstove

Pure glee

Underwater bottle rocket explosion

A cool bug-free zone for reading!

Adventures away from camp

Stuey and Nora both waded out to this rock from the beach (offshore rock in photo below)

Something new for this trip to Afognak is that rather than bringing inflatable kayaks along we brought just one big, inflatable canoe.  It is the canoe I usually take on float hunting trips on big rivers.

On our last couple of trips Brewster has not been comfortable with us leaving him on shore while we kayaked out on the ocean.  Nor did he like riding in the small and tippy kayaks (and we did try!).  So for this trip we brought a boat that all of us - including Brewster - could ride in.  And it worked out pretty well.  Brewster and the kids loved it.  One day we even paddled further up the bay than we ever have in the kayaks.

The Alutiiq used a similar boat called an angyaq - an open, skin-covered boat with benches that could carry 20 or 30 people.  The Alutiiq also used single-bladed paddles to propel both their kayaks and angyaqs.  So for this past trip my canoe and canoe paddle were actually pretty traditional for the area.  I bet it is the first time someone used an angyaq in front of Afognak Village in maybe a 100 years!
Patrick

The beach at Old Afognak Village 

Brewster and the spring beauties under the trees at Graveyard Point

The big blue canoe

Taking a shower in the sunshine

Hydrating

On the beach

It was pretty hot last week on Afognak, and often too hot to sit out in the sun on the beach.  But we did spend a lot of time on the beach - particularly in the mornings and evenings.  We read books, cooked quesadillas on campfires, napped.  The favorite activity was our play city.

The kids have been playing city for years.  It is the game where we make houses of rocks and shells, roads, and use feathers for money.  I have always wondered when they would outgrow the game but this year it seemed more popular than ever.

This year there were a lot of feathers on the beach, and we all had lots of money.  Consequently, there was a dramatic case of inflation.  At first no one would accept feathers for anything and we all worked on our own houses.  But then we made feather gathering rules to firm up their value and started offering lots of feathers for services.  Basically I made Stuey houses and Nora did all the shell landscaping.  A good, split level house with solar panels cost 30 feathers to build with an additional 25 feathers for landscaping.  That's outrageous prices compared to years past.  Patrick

Tidepooling

On our last trip to Afognak the low tides coincided with the middle of the day.  Consequently we spent a lot of time in the tide pools in front of the beach.  Mostly wading.  Stuey and I also got into building model sail boats from washed up net floats with pieces of slate for keels.  We would made the sails from water bottle plastic.  Then we had boat races across the big tide pool. Stuey absolutely loved this game.

I also used my underwater camera to take pictures in the tide pool.  I found if I took pictures of jellyfish from down below with the sky as the backdrop it looked like they were taken deep at sea and not in a knee deep tide pool.  Of course I could not see what I was doing and I had problems with focus.  I took literally a 100 jellyfish photos before I got any good ones.
Patrick

Sharatin Mountain in the fog

This winter I have climbed Sharatin Mountain to ski far more than usual.  Today was my 5th time up there this year.  All the other times the weather has been sunny and clear.  Not so today - today was foggy, windy and overcast.  But I kind of liked the change.  All the wildflowers blowing in the wind and the clouds of mist scudding by.  And also, unlike the other times, it has gotten very green up there.

Last week on Afognak we could see the big, snow-filled bowl on Sharatin mountain from our place at Lipsett Point.  Nora so wanted to go ski it!  So today I did go ski it!  There is still a mile long run to be had if you ski from the summit.  I actually did not go to the true summit because it was basically a whiteout up there.  Patrick

An old radial engine from a plane crash

First Blueberries 2018

Yesterday during a walk in the park I found my first ripe blueberries of the year.  Well they were blue anyway!  This is a little earlier than usual.  But two years ago we got the first berries on June 29th and they were also much further along - even at that early date.  That year on the 29th I even picked 2 cups with Nora (click here to see post). Sadly, I also noticed that this year's berries are a little small and that are not as many as a I expected.

Many of the bushes are covered with little yellow dots on the leaves and I gather that this is a 'blueberry rust' (click here for a description).  This is a fungi that apparently effects production and the health of the plants - Oh No! So I am a little worried about this year's blueberry crop.  Still it will be better than last year's non-existent crop.
Patrick

Back from Afognak

The kids and I spent most of last week on Afognak.  It was sunny and hot the entire time we were there.  So hot and sunny that we often spent the middle of the days in the trees and only ventured out onto the sunny beaches in the mornings and late afternoons.  Some highlights of the trip include: picking a subsistence net for red salmon from an inflatable canoe, fireworks with the Pfeffers who visited for the 4rth of July, building play cities in the sand, carving model boats, quesadillas on a campfire, tidepooling and long hikes in the woods.

Near the end of the trip Stuey declared, 'this is the best trip to Afognak ever!'  It seems we always say this, and in Stuey's case I think it was the bottle rockets talking.  But it is also true that Afognak is a place where 'best evers' happen.

I'll detail our adventures in some posts to come so stay tuned.  Patrick