ㅁ Around 6 or so the clouds gave way to the sun, but only briefly.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Tree #932
This tree is on a little island just west of San Ignacio Island, along a passage there with much kelp.
[daily log: walking, 1km; boating, 45km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n+26)
Art and I went out fishing today, accompanied by Joe and his friend Jim. It was a very long day, but quite mediocre in terms of results.
We launched a little before 7 AM.
We trolled from Tranquil point to Port Estrella, and tried for some halibut there. We moved northwestward to the center of Bucareli Bay, to a spot over a shallower underwater plateau there, and tried for halibut again. Jim caught the bottom and there was lots of spinning the boat around and yelling while we tried to get him loose – in the end, we broke the line and left his hook and weight at the bottom.
Then we crossed increasingly rough and windswept waters to the southwest corner of San Igancio Island, where we again tried for halibut, drifting northward with the wind, motoring south again, and drifting northward again.
That having proved fairly fruitless, we trolled through the passage on the west side of San Ignacio to that island’s north end. Nothing at all bit our hooks. We proceeded southeastward from there to Diamond Point (the southwest corner of San Juan Island), where Jim had had much luck with halibut a few days earlier. But nothing – though Joe hooked what he and I both believed was a “big one” that seemed to get away.
Then we gave up and went home.
I didn’t keep a very good mental record of where we caught our fishes, but in total Art got one “pink” salmon. I got one silver (coho) – which I caught, much to my own surprise, using a halibut hook. Joe got one smallish halibut and one healthy-sized ling-cod. Jim caught a tiny black bass that didn’t seem much larger than the bait it had swallowed. Art and I sent all the caught fish home with Joe and Jim.
After getting back to the house at just before 5 PM, Joe had his cooler with his small haul of fish, with the tail of one fish sticking out.
Year-to-date totals:
- Coho: 15
- Kings: 0
- Halibut: 1
- Other: 3
- Too-small fish sent home to mama: 22
- Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1
Caveat: Tree #931
This tree (which tree? some tree in the distance) saw a damp mushroom.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #930
This tree is the maple tree I’m trying to grow, in the kitchen window. It’s put out some new leaves, which gives me some small optimism.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #929
This tree is on the right.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #928
This tree saw the cloudcover thicken and grow heavy.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #927
This tree is growing quickly right by my greenhouse’s door.
Meanwhile, inside the greenhouse I found a cucumber.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #926
This tree is down near the high tide line.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #925
This tree, seen last weekend from the boat, had an eagle in it.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #924
This tree awaited the sun’s departure.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #923
This tree is from my past. It was witness to a rather ambitious hiking excursion I took with my brother in September, 2013, in southwestern South Korea – right during the time I was undergoing my 3-times-a-week radiation therapy for my cancer. This is on the mountain just west of Hongnong, between the town and the nuclear power plant on the coast. Hongnong is where I lived in 2010-2011. I remember being utterly exhausted from this trip.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #922
This tree was there when the sun came out. In the lower right of the photo, in the shadows, you can see the stairway to the treehouse.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #921
This tree seems to have a dualistic worldview.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #920
This tree at Batan Point had a regulatory marker attached to it (i.e. a no-trespassing sign).
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #919
This tree is up on the hillside.
We successfully retrieved Alan from the ferry and he’s settled in here at the house. The plan is to go out fishing tomorrow.
[daily log: walking, 3km; driving to Hollis, 130km]
Caveat: Tree #918
This tree is reaching for the water.
The plan had been that Arthur’s brother Alan (my “other uncle”) was going to arrive at Klawock airport this evening, to stay for a 10 day visit.
Apparently, though, Arthur managed to forget to book the last leg of Alan’s journey, on Island Air Express, which is the airline that provides service on their little airplanes between Ketchikan and Klawock.
Actually, I think saying that Arthur “forgot” isn’t quite accurate: his cognitive issue is, as described before, not entirely a memory issue so much as a failure of what the psychologists call “executive function.” I see this manifest in the following way: in day-to-day experience, Arthur often “checks things off” his mental checklist before he’s done them. Thus he thinks he’s told me of a plan to go fishing, when all he ever did was intend to do so. Or he thinks he’s booked a flight for Alan on Island Air, when all he ever did was intend to do so. He plays out the plan in his mind, and his mind says, “oh, good, that’s done, then.” I think his episodic memory of recent actions mixes up “planned actions” with “completed actions.”
So Alan had no seat on Island Air, and got stuck in a motel in Ketchikan for the night. We’ll get him over to the island today, hopefully – worst case scenario, he can take the ferry in the afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #917
This tree is another effort at trying to grow a maple tree. Along with the redwood, which I posted yesterday, I ordered a baby maple tree to make another go given my failed attempts at germination. It didn’t survive the week-long postal journey here as well as the redwood did – most of its leaves died. But it’s got a few. We’ll see how it does.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; errant erranding, 4hr]
Caveat: Tree #916
This tree is a coast redwood (sequoia sempervirens). I made an effort starting a few months ago to germinate some redwood seeds, but that effort ended in abject failure. So I decided to spend a bit more money, and buy a redwood sapling, which arrived on Monday. I have transplanted it into this little bucket with some potting soil, and will keep it in the greenhouse for now. Maybe it will survive.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #915
This tree exists.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #914
This tree caught some early sun at 530, before the clouds returned.
[daily log: walking, 1km; currying and cobblering, 2hr]
Caveat: Tree #913
This tree on San Ignacio Island has an eagle. Can you see it? It’s very small, but clearly silhouetted against the sky.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #912
This tree failed to notice the deer hiding behind a large rock. But I noticed it, and took its picture.
[daily log: walking, 2km; boating, 45km]
Caveat: Tree #911
This tree (from my past) is watching hot peppers dry in September, 2009. I saw it on the island named Ulleungdo off the east coast of South Korea.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #910
This tree was up early.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #909
This tree (recumbent) has appeared here before. It’s the tree that was damaged by the neighbor’s house fire in August, 2019. The absent owner next door apparently isn’t completely absent – he hired people to come and cut down these fire-damaged trees, and also yesterday while I was at work, a barge came and installed pillars for a new dock (seen in background, sticking out of the water).
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 7hr]
Caveat: Tree #908
This tree is down near that flowering plant.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #907
This tree is along the beach. The treehouse is in this picture, but you can’t really see it.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Tree #906
This tree saw stars in the sea.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; boating, 35km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n+22)
We went fishing today.
Arthur made more effort vis-a-vis communication than I’ve seen in awhile. Specifically, he told me yesterday, well ahead of time, that he wanted to go out fishing today.
This means a lot to me – it makes it possible for me to prepare myself mentally, to make sure I’m not in the middle of something stressful with my ongoing computer work (which is, frankly, traumatizing me lately). In fact, knowing we would go out today, I woke up extra early, did something relaxing instead of messing with the programming stuff, and even meditated for a while – something I should do more of.
So when we left at 7, I was more prepared than usual for dealing with Arthur’s laconic eccentricities. I made a lot of effort to be positive, and in fact, that helped. I’ve never wanted to deny that at least some of the issues and tension that arise between us on the boat is a result of my own shortcomings.
The water was flat and still when we left.
By the time we exited Port Saint Nicholas, however, the wind had leaped into action and the water was quite choppy. We went to San Ignacio, again, and trolled up and down the east side, twice. Nothing.
We then went to Point Tranquil. There, we hooked a salmon who got away, but shortly after, hooked another. It seems that it was the same salmon, because the second salmon had a hook in it, which we’d lost in the first (though Arthur hadn’t realized it at the time).
There were no more salmon. But there were many boats. I suspect there were more boats than fish. It was Sunday, after all – many recreational boaters out, a hefty-looking research vessel of some kind, a boat with a flag indicating divers were beneath, a commercial fishing boat anchored and a family on the shore nearby. And lots of sportfishing craft.
We trolled along the north side of that arm of Prince of Wales Island to Caldera Bay, where we gave up on catching salmon – though they were leaping out of the water all around us. We fished for halibut for a while. Nothing there, either. Then we came home. Here’s the northwest corner of Caldera Bay, a spot called Point Lomas (you can click the pic to embiggen).
Year-to-date totals:
- Coho: 3
- Kings: 0
- Halibut: 0
- Other: 1
- Too-small fish sent home to mama: 11
- Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1
Caveat: Tree #905
This tree is a little pine tree sapling I transplanted last year, from the muskeg about a mile east of here to a spot on lot 73. There are lots of pine trees in the muskeg but none growing around these lots, here. Probably different soil or something. Anyway, it seems to be doing okay, so far.
I made some cobbler, using mostly salmonberries and blueberries picked around the house here, but also some frozen raspberries my boss at the gift shop gave me.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; cobblering, 1hr]
Caveat: Tree #904
This tree is one of three.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #902
This tree saw the new culvert dry up for the first time – no water is flowing through it. This is the culvert that was newly installed on lot 73 last fall because of flooding problems on the road.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]