Resupply Logistics

We arrive here at the lodge in October with enough supplies to last us seven months (we head back to Sitka in May).  Occasionally a float plane will stop in and we get our mail and some fresh produce.  Harris Air is the company that flies the floatplanes (either a DeHavilland Beaver or a Cessna 185) out of Sitka.  Weather here is often not good enough for the plane to make it in.  A couple of weeks ago we got a notice that a plane would be stopping, so Blain and Mo (who are staying at our house in Sitka) dropped some groceries and our mail off at the Harris Air.

I called Harris the morning of the flight with a weather report which was actually pretty good.  An hour later, a snow squall moved in and the visibility really dropped.  I called Harris back, but the plane had already left.  The visibility got even worse, and I suspected that the plane wouldn't make it in that day.  I was down on the dock, optimistically waiting, when I heard the plane--I could see its landing lights, but the white plane was invisible in the snow.

Here's the plane approaching the dock.  Our pilot Rob reported that it had been a rough flight over with lots of wind in Chatham Strait and he had been in and out of squalls all the way from Sitka. The only snow he encountered, however, was here in the bay.

Unloading supplies for us and our neighbors Keith and Jackie.  Keith and Jackie are the caretakers at the Baranof townsite and I run their stuff over in the skiff after the float plane leaves.

With our stuff unloaded, Rob headed out before the weather got even worse.  His next stop was Hidden Falls, a salmon hatchery about 14 miles north of us on Chatham Strait.

Off he goes!  Of course, as soon as he was gone, the weather lifted and it was fine the rest of the day.