Back to Baranof

Jen and I are caretaking this winter at the Baranof Wilderness Lodge in Warm Springs Bay.  Jen tells me this is our 6th winter caretaking here in the last 9 years.  Where does the time go?  We are on the east side of Baranof, Sitka is on the west side.  Although it is only 20 miles as the crow flies from Sitka, by boat it is a 90 nautical mile trip up the outer coast, into Peril Strait, and then down Chatham Strait to the bay.

 

 

 We're here for about 7 months and we try to bring all our supplies with us as it is expensive to have groceries delivered by floatplane and even then, the floatplanes frequently can't get in because of weather, usually when we have groceries in Sitka waiting to come over.  So, here we are in the parking lot of the North Seattle Costco, loading the latest batch of supplies into the trusy Town Car.

 The supplies are then air freighted to Sitka on Alaska Airlines.  Jen gets a last chance to frollick with her "stuff" before loading it into boxes for the trip over.  Once at the bay, we usually can't find anything anyway.  We've been looking for a 10-foot curtain rod and a camera strap that somehow disappeared between the Condo Nasty and the lodge.

 Jen's personal assistant loads then the stuff into the Bobmobile for delivery to the harbor.  I have to admit that the Diet Pepsi is for the personal assistant.  It's actually not our Bobmobile anymore, but Blain and Monique made a serious error in judgement in allowing us to borrow it. 

 They then compounded that error by agreeing in a moment of weakness to transport all our stuff over to the lodge....a long day on the water.  We loaded the boat for about a week while Blain and Mo were trying to live on it.  The last minute stuff came on about 4 AM on October 5.  Jen had a few more trips to work, so Feral and I were the only passengers.  We had an ontime departure of 6 AM.

 Did I mention that Feral doesn't like dogs?  Luckily, she and Chance got along alright once it got light.  She's trying to sneak away while Chance smiles for the camera.

 Feral likes to navigate and do radio watches.

 On the other hand, Blain likes to practice splicing double braid line.  This splice took him about 3 days, but he saved the $9 he would have had to pay to have a professional do it.

 Mo trying to get some work done for her day job, hemmed in by all our designer boxes.

 Coming into Warm Springs Bay around 4 PM.  You can barely see Baranof's famous waterfall on the right side of the photo.

 Tied up to the lodge dock the next morning.

 We had a fantastic stretch of weather--so good Sailboat Bob had a perfect day to dry the mainsail.

 Mo and Sally fighting over desert....you can see we're going to run short!

 Mike was more interested in the last fresh Dungeness crab he'll have until he comes back in the spring.

 Our friend John has a cabin in the bay and came over to help me take all our stuff up to the lodge.

 Luckily, the tide was high and the boardwalk dry (not the normal circumstance for loading or unloading).

 It took a day to get all the boxes up to the lodge and get them organized, then I was able to take advantage of the relatively high tides to tow some beach logs back to the lodge for firewood the next day.

 Speaking of tides, we have a range of about 25 feet on the maximum tides.  Note the level of piling here at high tide.

 Now note the level of the piling about six hours later at low tide.

 Feral enjoys one of the best scratching posts in the world!

 Another example of high tide along the beachfront.  The first building is a greenhouse and some of the guest cabins are visible in the background.  Several of the lodge's skiffs are also beached for the winter.

 Here's the same beach at low tide--lots more ground to roam.

 Jen arrived on the 17th of October, a little behind schedule.  She had to make an emergency run to Seattle to see her dentist about some cracked teeth, before flying in by floatplane.  She is considering another part-time job as a fashion consultant.

She gets so angry with a maul in her hands.....I usually stay safely up on the boardwalk until she cuts, splits, and stacks all the wood.  She's always asking the question I haven't figured out the right answer to, "Do these coveralls make my butt look big?".