Decided to abandon the plans to go to Goddard because of Wednesday’s forecast for west winds to 25 mph and seas to 24feet. For some reason heading over to Brent’s beach cabin seemed like a friendlier proposition. We loaded the skiff with what seemed like enough gear for 2 weeks and headed north through the channel. I opted for the bow seat, so I was wearing polypropylene pants and shirt, wool pants, a wind bloc pullover and jacket with rain pants and coat over all. Not to forget the life jacket, hat, and water proof gloves. I could barely move, but I was warm and dry. The swell was noticeably large the entire way from the north breakwater to the beach. Between Crow and Guide islands was particularly sloppy. I was happy to have my back to the seas and the view. Did see a number of Common murres and one pair of Marbled murrelets along the way to Kruzof. Because of the high tides and storms the water was full of logs, seaweed and misc. detritus. It might have been a bit of a nasty ride after passing Crow Island, but the beach landing was truly gnarly. In fact, we looked at it for quite awhile before deciding to make the attempt. The breaking waves were mostly in the 1 to 2ft range, but there was the occasional 3 to 3.5ft wave. Ian jumped out at the beach and I tossed him stuff as fast as I could, once Deirdre made it the bow, I jumped/slid onto the beach too and Deirdre tossed us both stuff. What the unloading crew didn’t see was the wave that went over the stern; we did see the debris floating to the beach though. The wave turned the skiff broadside, then stern to the beach. We had it unloaded; now we had to get it off the beach. It took all four of us to push it out just enough to barely get the prop in the water (and out of the sand). The rooster tail of water was substantial when Jeff got the outboard going. Fortunately getting the skiff tied up to the mooring buoy went a lot easier, the surf wasn’t too much for the little plastic kayak. The only damage was one prop blade was slightly bent in the sand.
It was near high tide when we arrived which was useful for moving the pile of supplies. The cabin was in good shape, but is rather dark inside compared to the cabins at Fred’s creek and Shelikof It took a bit of effort to get the fire going, the provided wood was a little wet, bringing kindling from home was quite useful. I forgot to bring an axe, but the Forest Service fortunately provided a good axe and splitting maul at the cabin. We spent the rest of the daylight hours getting the cabin in order and walking on the beach. Saw one varied thrush and a robin in alders north of the cabin. Seven Black turnstones were working the drift line near the high tide peninsula to the small island. That night it hailed, snowed and blew.
The next morning Jeff and Ian went hunting and Deirdre and I went north to see if we could find an easy way to the cave near Pt. Brown. We didn’t manage to find a suitable path. We were stopped by a chasm that was just a bit wide for us to jump. We wandered up slope to look for an easy way down. No luck. We ended up above the cave on a headland. Lots of deer sign, but no animals.
We decided to head for Kamenoi beach while the tide was low. The beach fringe path made this trip much more straightforward than our first morning walk. The name Kamenoi apparently means rocky, I can only believe that the point was named first. The beach is sandy, rather coarse, but still sand. There are a couple of large rocks in the middle of the beach, but I’m still thinking that the point was the origin of the name. I hadn’t been on this beach since Deirdre was a toddler. It used to be a great razor clam spot. What I really remember about this beach is one of my first “stupid parent” tricks. Managed to take everything on the excursion, but what was needed the most. Why would anyone take a toddler clam digging without bringing extra clothes? Fortunately she can take care of herself now.
The beach fringe forest was a classic example of what we used to call a Pisi/canu or Sitka spruce/ pacific reedgrass stand. Lobaria linita/oregana would be good name to add to this forest type. This spot was interesting in how far inland the grass understory layer continues inland. The area was also interesting because of the incisement or ridges semi-parallel to the beach. The height of the ridges seemed more extreme than what I would expect from uplift, maybe some of them are due to basalt flows in addition to uplift Should always carry a shovel so I can test these ideas. Also saw 4 (maybe 3) Shore pines in one spot on the edge of the forest. Not a common sight around here.
Deirdre found a couple of basalt cliffs to explore and I collected two mosses and one small orange filamentous alga from the cliffs. I’m pretty sure it is the same orange creature that I’ve found on the basalt cliffs near Pt. Brown. There were three or four sets of deer tracks on the beach, but no other animals. Found a small group of Pine siskins and a Song sparrow and at one winter wren about every 100 yards. The wrens are in the drift wood, I assume eating small arthropods. None of them were too worried about us, just briefly scolded and went back to food gathering. Didn’t find any interesting beach debris except 4 Big skate egg cases (each about 10 inches long). Saw Mew, Thayers and Glacuous-winged gulls, Surf and White-winged scoters, Pelagic cormorants, Pacific loons, Common mergansers, Harlequins, Barrow’s Goldeneyes, Buffleheads and 1 Horned grebe on the water side. There were at least 10 Double-crested cormorants on the rocks in front of the cabin.
After lunch, Deirdre was willing to follow her mother toward the muskegs west of the cabin while Jeff and Ian tried for deer north of the cabin. The forest was a little brushy, but there were so many deer and people trails that it was relatively easy to get to the muskegs. Some nice cedar along the way, found one with the plaited looking bark that I associate with the largest or oldest of the yellow cedars. The bryophyte mounds on the cedars were dominated by Herbertus , the smaller ones by Tortula tortuosa. Both mounds had Apometzgeria, Plagiochila and Radula growing with the dominant species. There were the usual flat sheets of Frullania mid trunk and Isothecium cardotti toward the base of the cedars. I should probably positively identify which species of the liverworts I’ve been collecting from the cedars.
The muskeg had just enough snow to make it difficult to do a proper search for juniper and probably quite noisy for hunting. Didn’t find any juniper, birds or deer sign. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the easiest path back to the beach either.
We stopped at one of the small beaches between Crab and Kamenoi pt to watch the birds. A group of seven Pacific loons (could actually see the dark necklaces) was in the cove.
Decided to take one more walk down the beach before the retreat to the cabin for the night. Was turning to head into the forest to go around a point found a different sparrow. It had white wing bars, a light breast with one central spot, and brown stripes on its head with one brown eye strip that tended downward. I was fairly certain that it was a White-crowned, but after looking at Sibley, decided that it was a Tree Sparrow.
While trying to follow the sparrow around the beach fringe, I noticed a large flat gray lichen on the lower trunk of a Sitka spruce. All I could tell in the dim light was that it was something I hadn’t seen previously. The white spots on the underside were indicative of a Pseudocyphellaria or a Sticta. It wasn’t the right color for the latter genus, nor for the more common species of the former. I had found one piece of P. anomala on the ground earlier in the day. Had to wait until I could look at the Macrolichens of the PNW before deciding the lichen was P. rainierensis. I’ve read about the lichen, but hadn’t found it previously. It is a rare lichen through out its range and is considered to be associated with old growth in the PNW. In the lichen inventory of the Tongass, this lichen was found on Spruce and Crab apple along salt water beaches, same habitat that this one was growing (is still, I only took a small sample).
The Black turnstones which had wandered off during the day were back in their spot at high tide.
That night saw my second live marten. I was sound asleep on the top bunk; this is only impressive if one has slept on a narrow plywood bunk, when I was woken by a very loud pounding. The wood in the cabin amplifies every sound, a person rustling in their sleeping bag is quite loud, so the rest of the family ignored the sound, thinking it was me accidentally flinging things out of my bunk (I did this repeatedly). With headlamp in hand, I looked through the front window of the cabin. Hanging on the door to the cooler was a marten. It had its front paws through the top of the screen and the lower ones on the bottom wooden ledge. It was shaking the daylights out of the door trying to get it open. The door was held closed by a hook and eye latch and I’m surprised that the marten wasn’t successful in wiggling it open. Its ears were laid back and it was making odd noise (not quite growling). There was a particularly smelly hunk of liverwurst in the cooler which was most likely the object of interest. It wasn’t too worried about the light or me, but eventually it stopped the shaking, shifted position to peer briefly through the window at me, then jumped on top of the cooler and disappeared. It came back at least one more time that night, but didn’t have any more luck.
The other noise that started in the night was the surf, it had calmed down considerably on Thursday, but at some point in the night the swell had built up again. There was a little snow on the ground in the morning.
Deirdre and I walked back to Kamenoi beach while Jeff and Ian tried hunting again. No deer tracks this morning, but one set of river otter tracks. The otter followed the drift log line to a creek, entered the creek and I didn’t follow it further. The surf was huge. The waves were breaking on the large rocks and splashing about 15ft high. It didn’t seem like conditions were going to be too good for loading the skiff.
We did decide to leave mostly because the forecast sounded like it was just going to get worse. This time we used the boat anchor to off the stern to keep the skiff from coming in too shallow. The shore line was long enough to slowly move the boat toward the beach without grounding it, but shallow enough to allow loading. It still required a lot of frantic flinging of gear so that Ian, Deirdre and I didn’t get wet. Managed to load the boat without further destroying the prop, Deirdre and I stayed dry but Ian got wet to the shins. I did enjoy it when Ian had to pick me up to get me in the skiff. Where I could reach the skiff without wading too deep, the rail was above my chest, no way I could get myself on. I did pull him in after me. The joys of having grown children.
Decided to take a brief peek at Port Krestof, brief because Ian (and it turned out Jeff) was wet.
Oystercatchers, Horned grebes, Canada geese (6), Brant (about 20), Buffleheads, Scaup, Barrow’s goldeneyes, Common and Pacific loons, mallards, Common mergansers, White-winged scoters and a lot of ducks in the river channel that I couldn’t identify.
The ride home was flat calm in comparison with the trip over on Wednesday. Saw 2 groups of sea otters near Crow island. Friday evenings paper had a report of a dead Green sea turtle found in Port Krestof on Thursday. What looked like the same hunters (or at least a similar boat) were on the beach by Pt. Brown maybe hoping for a deer to go with the turtle.
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