Misty Fiords

 I did a little trip over to Rudyerd Bay, because I've always wanted to see what is up this one little river, and it was a nice trip.  On the way over I found some Red-Necked Phalaropes...   And also some Orcas, but I was trying to shoot video and didn't get any still pictures.  I passed by this volcanic plug, called New Eddystone Rock.  I pass this all the time with uncruise, but this time I had more time to look and think about what it would be like to climb it.

 I went past Punchbowl Cove, and the cliffs above punchbowl looked down on me with some snow on their brow. 

 As I got towards God's Pocket, I began to see Brown Bears in all the grassy meadows.  This one was a biggie...

 I went for a paddle and found some Common Mergansers

 And then for a short walk amongst the Nootka Lupine.  Unless these are not Nootka Lupine, maybe Abe will comment with a correction here.  The meadows are beginning to flower and full of green and lush leaves.  I wanted to lie down and nap in them, but it was rainy and there were bears all around.

 Like this one.  This bear was eating grass (as they do a lot) and never noticed me arrive, but I still kept my distance.  Its a big difference to be alone with a bear than to have friends along. 

 There was another bear that sauntered out but it retreated again.  The tide was dropping and I took this picture of Layla out at the edge of the tide flat.  It goes from 400 ft deep to about 5 ft deep very quickly and its hard to find the right spot to anchor in where you don't go aground at low tide, but you aren't too deep. 

 I paddled up the river at high tide later on and found this little spotted sandpiper

 Here's another Layla shot.  I set up a tarp as a rain shelter and it works great

 I moved to another location and found some more bears, and a wolverine which ran away before I could get a picture of it, and also some mating river otters. 

I'm back in Ketchikan now and trying to fix all the things that have broken since I started out, and the list seems to keep growing, but I also working it down.  Its a differential equation, actually, it is being added to and depleted from at the same time and at rates that depend on each other...  Since fixing the rudder up, I added some more support for the pulleys that are used to turn the rudder when using the wheel (you can also use a tiller on this one so if the wheel breaks it is a backup).  This was a very difficult job because of the access, but I managed to get it done.  I'm quite happy with it now.  The engine had a few leaks in it and I have patched them up as well, so that feels great, but the inverter, which turns the solar panel power and battery power into 120 volt power that I use to charge my cameras and computer, that has broken.  The heater is also finicky, and it was just working pretty well a few moments ago, but it likes to "pulse" and then go out a lot, so I think I need a new fuel pump for it.  But when it works, the world is so much nicer.
I made a rain collection system for filling the fresh water tank, and filled the ice box with snow from an avalanche chute, so hopefully I can only need to get fuel and food from towns.