The View From the Canoe

Hanging Weather

2009-12-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

I put in at the east end of the ancient portage. If this was a hot day, people would say that the weather was just hanging in the air. But, it is cold. Still, the weather is just hanging in the air. It is calm and gray, and maybe 45 degrees. Flocks of coots and ducks are north of me forming dense patches of black specks in the water. It seems that they have no interest in flight, except that once in awhile a few get up to rejoin the main flock when it has drifted off out of safe range. I head up the east side of the west islands passing, the Rock Pile, Broken Island, Birch Island, Number Two and Number One. The names are mine alone. A hawk sits in the osprey tree just north of Number One. In the NE lagoon, I get out and explore the wetland that once was Yesler Creek. New knee length rubber boots makes exploring the marsh much more fun. I share the lagoon with one heron that is busy hunting 75 yards away. Leaving the lagoon, I spot 3 trumpeter swans on the easternmost of the dirtbergs. I close to 100 yards so that I can hear their honking without disturbing them. Crossing the middle of the bay, a flock of ducks overtakes me and I turn to see an eagle beginning an afternoon hunt. It goes for a flock to the west and circles over what might be a coot or pied billed grebe. The eagle is determined, but I doubt that a kill is in order - whatever it has forced to dive is exceptionally skillful at staying under. A second eagle is on a branch just above the south nest. I wonder if they will shift from the north nest that they have been using to this south one.

And Paddling Away

2009-12-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

I struggle awake this morning and read enough news to show me that the ruling class is every bit as incompetent and misguided as it was in 1914. So, I take my canoe to the big lake and instead of heading north like I planned, I find myself heading away, paddling away, paddling away to the northeast, out into the big lake where no one is. It is gray and misting on the two mile crossing with a raw north wind. Open water crossings, especially in inclement weather and cold water, play head games with me. The far shore never seems to get closer and the near shore doesn't become more distant, until, in an instance, and never in the middle of the crossing, the shore I am heading for suddenly starts to near and where I came from has become small. I spot 10 western grebes on the way. Returning, I head west, straight across. It is a bit shorter crossing. There is a flock of 60 to 70 western grebes hunkered down near the midpoint. My guess is that the weather out on the salt water has sent them here today. Both eagles are at high points in the east marsh, which provides the only real color on such a gray day. The cattails have begun to take on the color and appearance of a cornfield in late fall, golden tan and shaggy. There is just a little ice left in the south lagoon and it breaks like the safety glass in an automobile when I paddle into it.

Paddling Away

2009-12-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

I start in the south lagoon. There is still ice here and a thin layer of fog forms on it. After two warm days with rain the ice is deceptively weak. It pops and cracks as I scoot the canoe across it. Once in the canoe, I find that I can break through 2 inch thick ice. Unseen flaws have formed in the ice during the rain. The canoe rides up on the thicker ice and then a crack zips out like a thin black bolt of lightning, the canoe sags and settles into the water. I cannot round the burial island. Instead I play with blocks of ice for a while, and then, move off. Yesterday, I toiled all day on a problem that I could not solve. Today, I need to paddle away. I need to paddle away until I wanted to paddle back. I circle Marsh Island once, noting buffleheads, bathtubs and nurse logs and then head through the cut. It is very calm with greasy clouds, clouds that the sun comes through as a yellow oily smear. I head straight through Portage Bay and follow the west side of Lake Union. Then into the Fremont canal. It was once a thin creek that dropped twelve feet in about a half mile to Salmon Bay. That was over a hundred years ago. Salmon Bay is busy with Kvichak launching a new boat. There are two large cranes and a tug to handle the job. The tug wash nearly blows me into a moored boat as I pass. I stop at Fishermans Terminal for lunch and I am ready to return. I have paddled away enough. At Kvichak, the boat is less than halfway out of the shed. There are scaups in the canal. I don't know why they prefer here, but they do. I rarely see them in other parts of the waterway. I head down Lake Union and take out at a place that is 200 yards south of my normal spot. The view is all different. Such a difference for such a small distance, but all the buildings and boats are a different scale from here.

Thaw

2009-12-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

The thaw is on, but the ice in the south lagoon where I put in is still 3 or 4 inches thick. Ducks are back in the open water although most are still out in the main bay. A heavy mist starts and it cuts the visibility to about a mile. There is a dreamy effect to the view. I see no swans, yet. Most of the ducks are near the north marsh. The widgeons provide a constant squeaky whistle, which seems a rather ridiculous call for a duck. Next time I get to design a duck I will keep that in mind. In the north marsh, I find myself sitting and watching, waiting for something that may never happen. The ducks take to air and an eagle comes into view flying east to west across the bay. It takes a half-hearted dive at one duck, but continues on until disappearing into the gray. And then, all returns to what it was. The flock is spread wide so that the opposite ends are beyond the limits of my peripheral vision. I like this, not because the ducks are infinite, but because for the moment they seem to be so.

Ice Games

2009-12-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

Cold weather, cold enough to form good thick ice comes so rarely to my home. I put in at Portage Bay and play with ice, never getting more than 200 yards from my start. I break, cut and position sheets of ice on old pilings in the bay and when done with that, I find that I can stick even larger sheets into the mud that forms the bottom. I balance them carefully, as vertical as possible so that they will survive as long as possible. The sun begins to break down the ice, our weather not cold enough to keep it in suspended animation, soon the big sheets have a spider web of flaws running through them, which only serves to send the sunlight off in a thousand directions. Some of them will make it to sunset.

Ice Crackin'

2009-12-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

It is still cold and the ice has thickened. I start in Portage Bay by balancing over the canoe and scooting with one foot for the first 10 yards until the canoe settles through thinner ice into the water. Straight away, I head through the cut into a calm Union Bay with one eagle circling and brilliantly lit by the low winter sun over an unseen coot. This time the coot gets away and the eagle flies off low across the bay, and almost as if it is throwing a tantrum, it scatters a hundred ducks without showing any real interest at all. I crunch through the edge of the growing ice in the south lagoon. This is not like the ice last year, which froze during snowfall. That was weak and airy stuff and I paddled through it for most of the two weeks it was present. This ice is skater's ice, window ice - it is clear and dense, almost as clear as window glass. A half inch of it is hard to bust through with the canoe and 3/4 of an inch supports the boat completely. There will be no passage around the burial island, so I head north across the bay after talking with a kayaker who is enjoying the weather as much as I am. The swan from two days back is nowhere to be seen, but the view is one of my favorites - deep blue water with its horizon defined by a thin golden band of cattails, higher brush, and finally blue sky. Ice is forming in the west islands and along the north shore, so, it has definitely been cold and calm at night. There is a constant whistle/squeak of widgeons in mid bay.

Ice

2009-12-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

It is still cold, maybe about 20 degrees this morning, but sunny and just a light north wind. I put in on the big lake and I am rewarded by three river otters just 10 yards off of the shore. At first I though they might be muskrats, but one climbed up onto the lower rung of a ladder on a dock to eat a small fish. They seemed to be heading south and they disappeared before I had the canoe in the water. Paddling north, the sun bakes my back while the north wind stings the tips of my ears with cold. Ice has spread in Union Bay. The east marsh is frozen firm and there is ice forming on the marsh edges that face the big lake. The ice is over an inch thick just 3 or 4 feet in from the edge. I spend a couple hours cutting large slabs of ice and balancing them on the rotting pilings that are found in the area. Sometime during the day they will pick up the sunlight from just the right angle and give someone something to wonder about. While carrying ice to a pylon, a splash happens to my right. I think for a second that someone has thrown a rock, then a kingfisher springs up out of the water. There are three swans in the bay. I see them from a distance and don't bother to get closer, so it is possible that there could be some immature grays - they blend in with the background from this distance.

One Swan

2009-12-06T13:22:00.001-08:00

It has been seasonably cold, not that it is always like this, but at some time during all winters, it is. I start at the south lagoon, which is partly frozen. The ice is only 5/8 inch at the thickest, so the canoe moves through with out too much difficulty. The ducks that like to winter in this patch of water have had to move elsewhere. These are dabblers mostly, mallards, widgeons, northern shovelers and so forth. I pick sheets of ice up and look through it like window glass. It is good smooth ice and would make good skating if it were a few inches thick. Exiting the east channel of the burial island, an eagle flies by heading north. A second one follows soon, but swings around back to the south and lands at the old nest that I spotted last year. Perhaps that nest will be used this year. As soon as I get to the north edge of the marsh I spot a swan 3/4 of a mile across the bay, and as I coast a few yards, a bald eagle appears just 10 yards to my right sitting on a log in the water. I am downwind and it is obviously eating a fish. I head across the bay and let the boat drift into the NE lagoon where a heron stands watch. Then, west past the swan - there is only one, I thought that I might find some immature gray swans. The grays are harder to spot from a distance. All of the birds are focused and behaving as if a storm is approaching. I return using the shelter of the west islands. The wind has been coming up since I started. It is cold enough that I wear gloves for the first time this season.

53rd Week Anniversary

2009-11-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

It is one year and one week since I started keeping this journal, although I thought that today was the anniversary. It's not the year that is important though, instead, it is the fact that now I will begin to see the seasonal patterns of life in the marsh. I start in Portage Bay. It is in the 40's with a strong SW wind and it is overcast. I point out the beaver lodge to some little girls who wander by and one tells me that she once saw an eagle hunting a coot. Her description was accurate.
I pass east through the cut and let the wind blow me north while I write, passing a flock of coots along the way. The wind blows me through the channel between the west islands and shore. I am not sure if I will be paddling back across the bay or walking around it.
A western grebe and some buffleheads.
The birds are laying low today.
Into an inlet and out of the wind.
A heron and two more female buffleheads.
Cattails rustling in the wind. A comfort sound for fall. Whitecaps have formed in the bay. This means that the wind is near 25mph. Crossing in mid bay is not going to happen. The nice thing about the marsh is that there are always little inlets, just big enough for a canoe, to tuck into, completely out the wind. A short hard grind takes me to the lee of marsh island. Then east to the east marsh, where I spot one eagle, but can't watch it because I have to keep fighting the wind. I enter the east channel of the burial island finding a large flock of mallards seeking shelter, as I am. A tall golden tree, all others skeletal, swirls in the sky above.

August 29, 2009 Lake Ozette

2009-09-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

I'm about to bust. My wife tells me to go. She can see that I am too excited to do anything else. I finish up an art submittal and load my gear and canoe in the car.
Four hours later I am at Swan Bay on Lake Ozette.
It takes me less than ten minutes to get the canoe in the water. I only paddle 1/2 mile, to Benson's Point and make camp. I am alone.
In the photo - Garden Island

August 30, 2009 Lake Ozette

2009-09-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

It was a very quiet night. I heard exactly four airliners and later, one small critter padded around the campsite for awhile. Up at 6:30 to a thick overcast and almost no wind. Oatmeal, coffee, load canoe, head south. I follow the east shore past Preachers Point where there is a private house (maybe only 10 private houses - grandfathered in when the lake became National Park land). I head into the bay at the south end, named - South End, but stop on a point to explore the forest a bit. A deer has left tracks on shore. It's old growth forest and fairly easy to walk in.
It is exceedingly still here. There is a fantastic echo in this bay and a play with it for awhile. Then I paddle on to Birkestol Point (on the left of the photo - it appears to be touching Baby Island). I see no one. I am done paddling by noon, and I find that the forest behind my campsite is impenetrable, and I am a pretty good burrower in such stuff. So, I read a lot. Saw an osprey, several kingfishers, some teal, some mergansers and a Stellars Jay.

Photo - looking north out of the south end

August 31, 2009 Lake Ozette

2009-09-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

I've already started to lose track of days. I can never trust my watch, it resets itself in my pocket from time to time.

I make bannock for breakfast, with strawberry preserves and coffee. I discover that my soap is not here, so I use sand to scrub the cooking oil out of the pan... and I will smell bad by the end of the trip. I will paddle to Allen's Bay, maybe a mile, to see if the Allen's Bay trail still exists. The trail is on old maps, but not on new or NPS maps. As soon as I round Birkestol Point, I can hear the roar of the ocean surf. Upon landing, the trail is easy to find - the first place I look, in fact. It is not at all hard to follow, but it is not at all easy to walk. (Photo - the best of the Allen's Bay trail). There is dew on the plants, the remains of an old board walk are broken and suspect at best and there are frequent downfalls to clamber over or under. This is rainforest and one must remember to walk like an eskimo - baby steps with feet under your weight because any wood is slick as ice. I've learned not to turn my nose up at using a stout hiking staff when walking in the coastal forests. This is a very bad place to break a leg, especially when alone. My brimmed hat shields my face from brush. I wear my rain jacket, but my boots and wool pants are soaked by the time I get to the ocean at Kayostia Beach. It is beautiful and no one is here as it is several miles of shore walking from any other beach access. It was entirely worth the effort.

There is a memorial here for a Norwegian ship that sank in 1903. Only two of the crew survived. I don't know, but they may have walked out on the same trail. The rest are buried here.

I walk back to my canoe. It is dryer this time because someone has already wiped all of the dew off of the leaves.
Back at the bay, the NPS patrol boat comes speeding into the bay. We wave at each other and they leave me to myself. Allen's Bay is a bit grim as a campsite, so I paddle north along the west shore towards Ericson's Bay, I'm pretty sure there will be a better spot for camp.

September 1, 2009 Lake Ozette

2009-09-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

A second party came into the bay last night. They camp a hundred yards away. This spot wouldn't get busy until there were 4 or 5 parties, it's a pretty big area for camping. We exchanged greetings from a distance and I imagine they are enjoying the solitude as much as I am.
Up at 6:30. The waves began crashing on the beach and have woken me up. I take a look and they are all of two inches high. A clue as to how silent it has been at night. I'm in no hurry, so I sit around and drink my ersatz coffee. 2 stellars jays are checking me out and a woodpecker is working over a branch to my right. It is overcast and dim, so I can't see any colors on the birds. I paddle a 1/2 mile south to the Ericson's Bay trail. It is a two mile hike to the ocean and comes out about 6 miles north of the Allen's Bay trail. I have no doubt that both of these trails were put in by homesteaders who brought supplies in from the ocean. Most of them had moved away before the first road arrived. I spot an electric insulator in a large cedar on the way and a winch that looks like it would've been ideal for pulling wire near the shore.This is the Sand Point area. Probably the most heavily used beach for about 20 miles in either direction. Since the beach is three miles from the parking lot (if you don't have a boat), and the parking lot is already a fairly remote spot, it stays very nice indeed.

September 2, 2009 Lake Ozette

2009-09-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

My last day. I'm up at 6:30, make coffee and oatmeal and tear down camp. I'm in the boat in 45 minutes. One of the guys that was camping here comes over to talk. He is impressed at how fast I can take down and pack. They're going to Allens Bay and I recommend that they think about camping at Birkestol Point, because it is that much better than Allens Bay. I head out on very calm water, stopping to explore the forest a bit when I spot an old man made stone jetty. The area was settled by scandanavians although most of them left before the first road was put in (1926). The rainforest takes back anything that is left to stand, so most homesteader structures near the lake have disappeared completely, other than the stone jetty and some fence posts made out of old timber railroad rails. You can recognize where they cleared land by the stands of 80-100 year old trees, which also do their part to bury any remaining signs of homesteads.

I spot a deer. Deer around here are not tame, but since they are not hunted they are not afraid of people. I walk to within about 20 yards for a photo and then leave it in peace. Back in the canoe I paddle up and around the North End and head back south to Swan Bay and my car.

More people should be out on days like this

2009-03-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's mostly cloudy, windy and cold enough to snow, because it did. The thick dark clouds put a steel blue color on the bay. When the sun pops under at just the right angle, it spotlights the ducks and leaves the water dark. I head out through the east channel next to the burial island. There is still a few extra inches of water in the lake, so I paddle along the edge of the marsh, because you can't do that once the lily pads have come up in the spring. I see a dead beaver back 10 feet in the cattails. Scavengers have just started to nibble on it, so it has probably been less than a week. I cross the bay. I don't see the eagles and I do not find the last two swans - they are probably back up near Skagit Bay. Over by the west islands, I haul a large road construction barrel out of the water. Then, I spot both eagles in a tree on the west shore. The female flies over as I head towards them, she is enormous. Enjoying the blustery day and not ready to quite I head through the cut into Portage Bay and continue into Lake Union. The wind there is out of the west as I paddle south into the lake. The wind is stronger, the waves are bigger, but not yet white-capped. I paddle past the drydock where they are dismantling the Wawona, an old wooden bald-headed schooner. They never got the funds to restore her and she has been slowly rotting in the lake since before I moved here. I remember when she still had her masts up. It starts snowing. I take out and walk up over the hill to home.

Fog

2009-01-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Today, I write as I paddle.
There is a thick fog where I put in.
The heron is where it usually is and it flies off even though it has no reason on account of me, but it always does that.
Nearly all of the bark is off of a birch to my right, the beaver has been busy. I have paddled 50 yards.
I cut between the workbench and the big lodge to see if there are beaver tracks. I have plaster with me today. Beaver seldom leave paw prints.
Fog Changes the view. It is almost like a new place to me.
I use my compass to steer a straight course across the bay.
Even in this little bay I am out of sight of house and road for some time.
Ducks are just barely visible. Their safe distance is almost the same as my visible distance.
I put my wool gloves on. A slight breeze makes just enough difference.
I stop in mid bay to drift for awhile.
A duck surfaces in front of me. It seems to be 200 yards off, which means that it is 3 feet tall.
Fog confuses time and space.
I find shore at the point where the eagles and hawks perch.
My only chore today is to check on the carcass of the dead swan. It is as it was.
As I near the lunch counter, I hear the swans before seeing them. I drift and let them swim away.
Both eagles are perched on the little island near the lunch counter.
One eagle flies off after some ducks and they all quickly disappear, the outcome is a secret.
The ducks are very near shore today, something they would not do if it was clear.
The eagle returns and the two of them chirp at each other.
I am shooting lots of photos today in directions that I normally would not. The bay appears the way I like to think of it.
Paddling by the west islands, I startle the three immature swans.
I recover an Amazing Spiderman rod and reel from the depths. Actually, only 18 inches. The water is very cold. As long as my hand is freezing, I pick up some golf balls.

Beaver

2009-09-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

I get up early and put in at the south lagoon before sunrise. Something in the back of my mind, imprinted long ago, always tells me that a small amount of self imposed torture will have disproportionate benefits.It is calm and not dark, but the world is in shadow. I head up the east channel of the burial island, preferring not to come out into open sky too quickly, but I really didn't think about it... direction by hunch. As I near the north end of the east marsh, a beaver swims across my path towing a branch. It doesn't seem to notice me until I am 10 yards away and it dives with a slap of the tail sending water 4 feet in the air. I continue on to a distance where it might feel safe, I pour a cup of coffee and then I sit still and watch. While I wait, there is a splash closer to my left and a moment later a second beaver surfaces. I decide I had better look all around, and there is number 3, just 50 yards behind my left shoulder. 1 and 2 continue to the lodge, but 3 swims a big wide S, watching me carefully. This leads my eye to number 4, which is motionless in the water. I figure out that I am interfering with their business, so I move back 20 yards. The sun comes up. A kingfisher flies overhead chattering all the way. 3 has now moved off toward the lodge and I see it no more. 4, however, continues to swim slowly back and fourth. Twice it dives with a slap of the tail, even though I haven't moved. 4 seems to be the guard beaver. After I back off another 50 yards, it watches for a few minutes and then disappears. I wait 10 minutes and with no more sign of beaver, paddle off across the bay. A 4 man shell rows by at speed heading into the sun. The coxswain, perhaps the wife of one of the rowers tells how beautiful the morning is by the expression on her face, which is brilliantly lit by the new sun. She glows golden. If it was my wife and I were rowing, I would stop and watch her and damned be to the other three in the boat. I find geese, ducks and coots on the north side of the bay. A redtail hawk lands in a tall alder tree. There are lone coots around. The eagles are probably still eating salmon. Independent coots, the rebels, are eagle food during the winter.

Part 2 - DD8 and DD9

2009-12-02T16:25:00.001-08:00

Dry Dock #8 (just barely in view on the left) and Dry Dock #9

You can't see much from land, but this is where the big boats go,
the ocean going, the working class, the boats that know the harsh difference between the lore of the sea and - the reality of the sea.
Each year, one or two don't return. The ones that do might come here.
Re-fitted, re-painted, re-worked, re-launched.
Paint is chipped, broken metal cut off, new metal welded on.
DD8 is where the Wawona, 165 feet of wooden schooner,
rotting in the water, was erased.
Unrepairable, un-seaworthy, uneconomical.
I saw the tops of her decks in DD8 on her last day.

Part 1, 1850

2009-12-02T16:24:00.001-08:00

Unable to reconcile the nature of Union Bay and the industry of Lake Union, which for your information are separated by one mile of water, I split today's journal into two parts.

I put in on the big lake and decide to make this 1850 day. Settlers arrived here, permanently, during that decade. It is in the mid 30's with not one cloud anywhere and with a light cold wind out of the north. There is a small chop on the lake so that the surface is a dark blue green with black static running through it. Mt. Baker is clearly visible, snow and glaciers all white, on the north horizon, eighty miles away. There are buffleheads and canada geese along the shore, a cormorant or two, and four common mergansers. The common mergansers, a very large and pretty duck, have just arrived recently in the lake (this year). The 1850 skyline is about 100 feet higher, Douglas Firs, Western Red Cedars, maples, and alders replacing the rooftops. The lake is 10 feet deeper and it drains by a river 10 miles south, a river that no longer exists. It is steep where I put in, so that shoreline hasn't changed much, but in many places, where there are now houses, there is instead a quarter mile of shallow water and marsh. The Duwamish live all up and down this and other nearby lakes and along the rivers. Smoke, on a cold day like this, would be the most obvious marker of their village locations. At the opening to Union Bay, a potlatch house stands on the south shore while the point forming the north side is a tangle of forest. Exposed to winds during storms, there would be some massive trees lying on the ground there making land passage difficult. This bay is considered a rather well-to-do village site. In the NE corner of the bay is a longhouse, 2 more are a mile north from the current north shore, that mile being open water and marsh. Another stands near the smokestack that marks the University steam plant. The south shore is a good 1/4 mile south of its current location, and the largest island, the burial island, is the only island in the bay and it is much smaller than it is today. The Duwamish place their dead in boxes and place the boxes in trees on this island. Since then, it has been misused by the settlers and their descendents. This would be fine weather for hunting waterfowl, which would be present in much larger numbers than it is today.
I stop and talk with two bird watching friends on the north shore. The eagles are not out right now, but there are two red-tailed hawks. I am informed that one of them has learned to hunt coots and ducks like the eagles do. One catches a mouse while we watch. The eagles show up as we stand, but they do not go to hunting directly. As I paddle down the west islands, both eagles land on a drift log 30 yards away. They have a dead seagull there. One picks at it, but I get the idea that they would prefer coot and the gull is considered leftovers. I continue on through the cut, which can't be done in 1850, because the cut won't exist until 1916. Instead, there is a well used and ancient portage of maybe 200 yards that takes one into Portage Bay. I continue on into Lake Union, a far too nice day to be inside.

Lake Union

2009-11-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

I walked up and over the hill to start in Lake Union. It's about 50F with a good south wind. The clouds have broken up for the first time in several days. It is still mostly cloudy, but at least there is some definition in the clouds. I round the south end of the lake. It is mostly just big plastic yachts with names like "Adventure" and "Wanderlust" until I get over to the Society for Wooden Boats. They have a great collection of usable wood craft. I sit in the protection of the Swiftsure, an old lightship. I once got to roam all around the inside that ship. A DeHavilland Beaver float plane chugs past and then turns and guns it's motor for a downwind takeoff. Then, once again, it is as quite as the middle of a city can get. I enter the lagoon on the SW corner. It used to be a rough spot, overgrown with pilings in the water. The Wawona's masts were stored here, floating in the water, for some time. The area is being redeveloped for a park. It looks pretty sanitary at this point and I hope it will return to something a little more natural as time passes. This lake is in bad need of some natural shoreline. I paddle north and poke into the gaps between marinas to see what the shoreline looks like. A seagull with a broken wing sits out the rest of its life on a bit of rocky shore. People walk by on the trail above, but they can't see this due to the steep bank. I continue north and then east into Portage Bay, which is noticably calmer in spirit than Lake Union. The day is too nice and so I go through the cut and pause on the far end in calm water.
The wind has sprinkled leaves on the water.
Willow, alder and birch and some I do not recognize.
The first sun in many days brings a calmness to Union Bay.
What seemed to be a gray fall is still vibrant with gold and red foliage rimming the water.

After a Storm

2008-12-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the edge of a winter storm came through with lots of wind and rain. This morning was calm and in the upper 30's. I wanted to see how things were in the bay so I got an earlier than normal start. The wind would gradually rise throughout the two hours I was on the water. I spotted the eagles right away although later I noticed that there are now at least three eagles in the bay. I saw two northern pintails during the trip. There are more geese in the bay also. There were more herons than usual. I saw two adult otters. I don't think they are from the five member otter family that I've reported on before. In the photo - For a few years there has been this 20 foot long culvert section up against the cattails and I always figured that it must be too heavy to move. A couple of weeks ago, I went over and gave it a bump and it turned out to be filled with floatation foam. So, today I tied a rope to it and towed it a few hundred yards to where I could wrestle it onto dry land where a road crew will eventually be tasked with hauling it away. It's a bit of semi-bandit-good-deed-earth-stewardship. It sure was fun wrestling the bastard out of the water. But I'm really glad I won't have to look at that thing out in the marsh anymore. At the end of todays trip I watched two eagles hunt ducks for about a 1/2 hour. It appeared that they wounded a coot as all of the others flew off except the one. The eagle would circle and take runs at the coot while the coot tried to spend as much time as possible underwater. After a few minutes, the eagle would rest in the trees and the coot would swim toward safety. This happened three times before the coot finally escaped to hide in the brush.

The canoe takes me.

2009-09-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

From the canoe ...
My country has gone insane. Religious and political ideology combined with greed and hateful speech. It's awful, it's maddening and I am ashamed and saddened.
In my canoe, the wind is behind me, coming over ten miles of lake under a low thick overcast. My canoe is completely sane. It is purposeful, even if I am not. It takes me. (the period drops in on that sentence of its own accord...) My canoe drifts, it rocks on waves, if floats, it carries load, but mostly, it takes me, and, I let it.
The big lake, all rock walled and with two long floating bridges turns ordinary wind waves into chop. I stay a couple hundred yards from shore, as I move north, for easier paddling. I am on my knees until I reach Union Bay, the boat is more stable in that position. But no waves come over the gunwales and the only real thrill is when a yacht sends a large wake my way. It adds with the wind waves and I ride a couple chest high waves. Along the south shore of Union Bay the air smells green, the wind blowing it across the east marsh. It is the smell of fresh cut grass, only cleaner and more natural to the taste. It has many more flavors than a lawn. Three pied billed grebes are to my left. Their talent is to sink, not dive, without trace into the water, and they demonstrate for me as usual. I stop at the big beaver lodge, which is covered in summer vegetation so that no casual visitor would recognize it. The lake is down 15 inches or so from early summer. Of notice, cormorants have begun to return. They seem to be the first birds of the returning fall. I circle the bay, pass through the cut, the next bay, and down Lake Union, just going where my canoe takes me.

Speedwell

2009-10-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's all politics rolling around in my head as I walk my canoe to the south lagoon. As soon as I am in the boat it is all birds in my head. Turning the point of the little island, a heron is frozen in hunting position. I see the first hooded merganser that I've seen in awhile. A northern flicker looks for ants on a downed log before flying to the side of a rotten tree, and a stellars jay sits at the tip top of a tall tree. I head out on the east channel of the burial island, grabbing a dozen golf balls from the bottom. I reach in up to my elbow to get them. The water has returned to a hypothermic temperature - cold. Then straight across the bay to the lunch counter in a light east wind. It is cloudy, but they are winter clouds and it seems that the light is filtering through high ice crystals and not through water droplets. A kingfisher sits in a tree at the railroad island (formed by the remaining pilings of an old railroad stub. Ducks are in loose flocks with some widgeons and gadwalls returning to the mix. Coots are carelessly near shore, so the eagles are not intensely hunting them, yet. Half of the cattails are yellow, and half of the cattails are still green. They are all mixed together though, and this makes a beautiful patterned wall. I scare up a dunlin... I spot one large western grebe in the bay and a smaller look-alike in Lake Union.

Rain

2009-11-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

It's raining, solid and steady. When it rains like this, people here tell visitors that it hardly ever rains like this, but it actually rains like this quite often. S says I am crazy to go out in it, but she says that mostly because she is supposed to say that. She knows that I will find something of great value out there today. I start in the south lagoon. There are six northern shovelers nearby. They are large and pretty in coloring with an unusually big and broad bill, hence the name. By the marsh island, a hooded merganser mixes in with a few wood ducks, which is pretty normal behavior for them. I spot a heron and wonder how much harder it is to hunt with the rain disturbing the surface of the water. I the main bay, there are buffleheads and a large flock of coots. When I near the bottom of the west islands, I notice the resident bald eagle pair tag team hunting. They pause for a moment in a paper birch on one of the islands, then back out to circling and swooping at an unseen bird in the water. I stop short of my intentions, so that they can use the paper birch if need be. They catch nothing on the second try, one eagle returns to the birch and one to the dirtberg out in mid-bay. On the third attempt, the male of the pair snatches a coot from the water and flies off. The female gets nothing and will have to keep hunting. I get into the NE lagoon and smell home heating oil. The old 6 foot pipe, which is listed as an overflow pipe, has a current coming out of it. I've never seen water actually flow out of this pipe, but the recent rain has probably created an "overflow" situation. Yuck that has collected in the pipe for some time is now being flushed. I head back south across the bay. Paddling in the east channel of the burial island, I drift off, aware that I am mentally off the material observation and finally going with the canoe. Beautiful fall leaves. No one anywhere. Sound muffled by raindrops. I ease up on a heron that is sleeping in a tree, a headless form because it has tucked it's head so deeply down onto it's chest between the edges of it's wings. It stays put while I pass. Taking out now makes no sense, so I paddle on and through the cut to the new launch at the south end of Portage Bay.

Change

2009-11-17T16:51:00.000-08:00

I put in on portage bay in the early afternoon. Dark clouds are moving in from the west. Where I grew up one could expect a ferocious thunderstorm and high winds out of such clouds, but here it will most likely just be rain, and it is already windy. Some coots in Portage Bay. Exiting the cut I spot a common merganser. A big flock of coots is moving out in mid-bay, so I look for an eagle and find one in a semi-hover a few hundred yards north. It retreats to the paper birch on one of the islands to rest before continuing with the hunt. I don't circle the bay today, but hang closer to shore due to the weather. I see two nutria not far from the eagle's perch. The temperature drops and it starts to rain hard. I head down into the protection of the south lagoons where I eventually take out.
Today's photo courtesy of the dumping rainstorm that followed.