Life on the Outer Coast

April 18th

I had promised to take Jonathan Goff out to the Pt. Brown area before the Saturday field trip so we set out Friday morning around 10am. It was sunny, cold and rather windy out of the northeast. In fact the wind was up enough that I had serious doubts about making it all the way to Kruzof, but thought it was worth trying. I've been getting a bit nervier about zipping through the Apple, Chaichei island route, so we went out that route. Actually it was the way to go in a north wind. Kasiana and Middle island blocked the worst of the waves. Now that I've gone that way a few times, it is alot less nerve wracking. Started out through the passage between Gagarin and Crow island, but saw that the path between us and Kruzof was looking gnarlier than I was interested in. Thought about going through the passage between Crow and Middle island, and around, but I didn't see any advantage to that approach in terms of avoiding the wind.

We decided to go to a beach on Crow island northwest from the Middle island Goodyera beach access. It was relatively steep, but accessible landing that was protected from the wind. The beach was mostly mid sized rocks, so it didn't look to problematic. Sucker beach. It was sunny, calm and covered with herring eggs, in other words quite inviting. Many ravens, eagles and maybe a few crows were in agreement about the beach.
Had a nice wander across the island to the windy, cold northwest side. The center of the island had more cedar than I'm used to seeing on small islands. The yellow cedar had the braided bark that I associate with older trees (of course I don't have any real basis for this impression). Gorgeous trees with lots of typical looking cedar epiphytes. Jonathan found a squirrel tracks and scat in a hummock with devoured spruce cones, I found a tarp shelter. I had a difficult time looking at the ground with the plethora of cedar, but managed to refocus a little bit. Both early and alaska blueberry were in bloom, didn't notice any salmonberry, but there wasn't really much habitat for that shrub.
Went back to the beach, shoved the boat around a little and ate. The beach seemed a little less steep at this point, but still okay. Slight error in judgement. Thought about using the kayak to anchor the skiff out deeper, but didn't think in necessary since we were leaving for Middle island after a short walk to pick up a tote we had seen on a neighboring beach. I wanted to collect some of the herring eggs for the garden, so the tote was a great find.
Shoved the skiff again and wandered off down the beach. Was totally distracted by the lichens in the alder along the way, not to mention the piles of unidentifiable seedlings, young dock leaves and impressive beach combing (batman t-shirt, broken lawn chair). In the back of my mind, I kept thinking I should go check the skiff, as we were beach combing during the beginning of the falling of the tide, but why listen to such voices when the sun is out and there is beach to explore?
The dock leaves were pretty tasty, nice and lemony. I might have to go back to determine which species we were eating. The seedlings weren't identifiable by their growth (cotyledons or taste), so who knows what we had tasted. Should have noticed that I was still on the dense side of my recent cold or perhaps blind without my glasses, when it had to be pointed out that the leaves were still cotyledons. I thought the one I ate had a bit of a mustardy flavor, but Jonathan didn't notice any.
The alders had alot of Ramalina, looked like R. farinacea and R. roesleri, but I haven't looked carefully at the collections. Also found abundant Tuckermanniopsis chlorophylla and Ulota phyllantha and crispa.
Ultimately decided that I couldn't ignore the tide any longer, but alas I had ignored it a bit too long. When we returned to the skiff with our plastic treasures, the skiff wasn't moving quite so freely in the water. There was still water all on all sides, just not quite enough. The water on the deep side was still over our boots, but the stern part of the keel was resting on a rock somewhat larger than the rest of the rocks on the beach. Despite alot of sweat inducing use of levers and implementation of roller logs and removal of cargo, the skiff wasn't moving.
We made the necessary phone calls (needed a bit of ridicule to go with the and proceeded to gather fire wood. Despite being a bit on the dense side, I had at least brought my fire kit. I guess that it was quite useful to get stranded with a fire builder as well. Jonathan had a pretty nice fire going in pretty short order and we had quite a pile of wood in reserve, alot of it drying behind the fire. I was too busy saving lichens from the fire. Found Coptis asplenifolia blooming in the Spruce/Calamagrostis zone just above the beach on one wood gathering foray.
It didn't seem like particularly tough duty, sun, nice fire, pizza, cookies, a nainamo bar, lots of water and a few cokes (salvaged from the skiff) and good company. It was nice getting stranded with someone who wasn't visibly ticked off by my error. I can imagine that many people wouldn't have been so easy going about the situation.
The only bad part of the adventure was going to be getting up at 5am after moving the skiff in the middle of the night. As it turned out, we didn't spend the evening on the beach. Jeff couldn't quite hear me well enough on the phone, so was a bit worried. Jonathan and I were just settling into the log by the fire and a skiff approached. Actually, it was headed to another beach, but soon came our way. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed at being rescued, both from the standpoint that I thought that it would have been kind of interesting and because Jeff was going to end up cleaning up my mess. The good part was that Jonathan made his dinner appointment and we both got some needed sleep.
We broke up the fire, packed up and went back to town. Saw a few Tufted puffins on the west side of Kasiana.
I was planning on heading back out with Jeff to retrieve the skiff, but didn't end up doing that either. I wanted Steve Langhorst to come with us (strength seemed good), he did, but Joanne decided to go along as well, so I stayed home. Steve and Joanne enjoyed the evening boat trip and the opportunity for teasing me about getting stranded with a younger guy. They suggested using an inflatable rock next time and bringing alcohol.
Jeff got home around 2am from the island. The heartless wretch at home was sound asleep at the time, but I guess that was the point of being resuced. Fortuntately, he could sleep in on Saturday. He was treated to multiple Great Horned owls calling. Happily, he enjoyed the evening on the island and didn't have much trouble getting the skiff off the rock. It still took a bit to get it off the rock that had us trapped earlier.
Nice blood red sun setting in the evening. Looking forward to visiting Crow island again, but perhaps will use the kayak to anchor the skiff. Or maybe not.