27 July 2008

And the rain came down...

Day six. Or seven.  Possibly, come to think of it, eight nine or ten, of rainy days here in SouthCentral Alaska.  I cringe to think of summing up the time I've seen the sun in the past week.  The hours could be counted on one hand, and that time denomination is pretty optimistic. 

I have been wanting to post pictures from recent events, but my camera cord is hopelessly lost in my house somewhere.  I have searched to such an extent that I'm afraid that I had a "moment" and perhaps placed it in the freezer?  Or one of the dogs ate it.  Or it's gone to the same place my single socks go missing to...

So no pictures, but some updated thoughts from life in Homer these days.  There's a good chance that my camera cord *will* be uncovered, as I am presently taking a break from packing. Yes, packing. Yet again I'm moving myself, my dogs, our belongings, to another home.  Yeah! This time, we're moving in with Ms. Megan Murphy, to her fabulous home- such an exciting work-in-progress that I'm very much looking forward to be part of the changes and living amongst & contributing to the improvements I've been so impressed by!  Not to mention having such wonderful roommates (that being said, I will very much miss Jen and Blaine and our little house with big windows in the suburbs of Homer).

My current life plans include staying around Homer for the winter.  I just love rain and scanning fish *that* much.  Just kidding...I'm excited about hanging around a bit longer - it took me so long to warm up to this place (and I mean that extremely figuratively - have I mentioned how damned cold it's been this "summer"?), I'm not quite ready to leave yet. 

Last weekend, the last solid bit of sun I can recall, Kaya and Shaemus and I went down to Bishop's Beach to run at one of the super-low tides.  Once getting beyond the 1/4 mile immediately surrounding the parking area, there were no people.  No one.  This is a beautiful part of a seaside tourist community in Alaska, vs. Maine where I'm from.  The beaches, more or less, remain fantastically deserted throughout the summer...even when the sun is out, there isn't much in the way of sunbathing to be done, and even less swimming.  So as we were running down the beach, the dogs were playing in the rocks, the waves, tearing down the open sand - and I was running along, shirt tied around my waste and sun streaming onto my arms and bared torso (first, and probably only, time of the year).  The cliffs along the beach remind me so much of Peninsula Valdes in Patagonia, and my dogs running with abandon made me feel so blessed and overwhelmed with joy that I couldn't imagine it was time to pack up and move on at this point.  There are just too many runs left to do on that beach, with those cliffs, and these dogs.  Not to mention the quite-good skijoring to be done in the wintertime! 

I should get back to packing, but whenever I find that camera cord....my boat looks much like a boat these days!  I know, you can't wait, can ya?!

04 July 2008

inspiration realized - kayak building...

so, as i just described in my last post, mom and i were across the bay and i was inspired. i need a boat.

okay. what i really need is a small skiff, with a small engine.  given, however, that i have little in the way of financial resources, and the skiff my dad said he'd give me is upwards of 3000 miles away (by land, lord knows how far by sea...), the kayak i'm fixin' to build is going to have to suffice for now.

so this evening i got up the courage to do some measuring, some more measuring, and then to make some serious cuts in the gunwales, which are still nailed together for symmetry's sake.

IMG_0422 i'm pretty pleased with my use of power tools...

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i already drilled the holes in the bottom where the ribs will go (pictures later - i don't have them handy), and so the job tonight was to shape the gunwales.  i.e. - cut off large pieces of wood.  ack!

i practiced a bit with the hand-jigsaw that i bought for $20 at a yard sale a few weeks ago.  palms kind of sweating with nerves, i cut into my boat frame and started the process....

mom came out and was a huge help - not only did she have good thoughts on clamping and tool-use, but she also did a bit of documenting:

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there's a video, as well, of me jig-sawin', but i'm going to have to figure out how to get it up and posted... more later, but the kayak building is on!

inspiration across the bay

  yesterday morning, mom and i took a water taxi across kachemak bay, to kachemak bay state park.  we stayed in a beautiful yurt, built by nomad shelters here in homer.

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i really loved this shelter - i think i could easily live in a yurt, and kaya and shaemus didn't seem to mind, either...

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the beach was gorgeous - we had a campfire and read by the water in the evening.  earlier in the day we hiked over to the grenwick glacier lake - soooo beautiful!  icebergs were brilliant blue, and the glacier was incredible.  on the way back we had a good bear-scare, with the dogs alerting us to a bear just off the trail in the woods.  i was on the ready with bear spray, and mom was securely fastened to my back.  we yelled our way down the trail, making sure that we were noticed and weren't surprising anyone...all was good, albeit a little shaky, and we made it back to the yurt safe and sound!

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dogs were happily roaming free, swimming in the ocean and amongst the icebergs, mom and i got to relax and breath in the deep smells of the forest (ahhh! big trees - i love it!), and all in all i felt inspired and incredibly pleased with the world.