8/3/03 - Second Day of Paddling
We are up at 6:45, have a quick breakfast, and are on the water by 9:30. The sky is mostly clear, temperatures cool. This is about the best weather that I could imagine.
In the morning while wading I feel an unusual coldness around my right foot. At noon I feel it even stronger and know what it means: my boot is leaking. this is terrible news. So early in the trip. If I can't fix this I'm doomed to weeks of wet, stinky feet. This has happened on too many trips. Why did I not inspect these boots closer? The failure is in the rubber at the back near the ankle. At dinner I apply copious amounts of seam sealer. If this does not work then I'l glue some canoe patch material over the rubber.
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We assemble the fishing rod. At our second climb-the-hill-and-look-for-wildlife stop I pull out the poll and start casting. I as much like the operation of the poll, casting out and reeling in, as I enjoy catching fish. There are fish here to be caught - I can see them just off shore breaking the surface of the silty water. One strikes at my lure on the second cast but does not byte. On the 10th I hook one. Sean holds him while I clobber him with a rock. Sean takes the rod and continues to cast while I clean the fish I caught.
We camp, not too much further down stream, on a wide gravel bar. Like many gravel bars this one is a little sandy. When it rains it is a little muddy. The whole expanse of the gravel bar is only a couple feet above the river level. From debree left in brush and channels swept clear between the brush I can tell that at high water the river flows over this gravel bar.
There is a cold wind blowing. We set up just the mega mid, staked to the ground to provide us with good wind block. We build a further wind barrier of canoes and our gear piles around the windward side of the tent. Billie gets in and says that the mega-mid is too small. We could all fit but it would be cramped. So we take the mega-mid off and set up the bug-tent.
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8/4/03 - Late start.
Rain most of the night. We get up late and have a slow breakfast. We decide to take the morning off then re-evaluate at noon. I go to the tent to read but then end up sleeping a lot of the time.
Still raining at noon so we put of a decision. We walk to the very inside edge of the gravel bar and find many tracks in the mud. Probably many of these were made overnight as we slept.
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By 2 pm it is drying so we decide to go. The sun has come out and it is actually very beautiful. Billie is paddling with me and M with Sean. The winds are strong and we have to work to keep the boats moving downstream. |
We stop at old Woman hill and hike to the top. There is a grave site up here, out lined with wood and a post in each corner. It is old so the wood lays on the ground and the posts are tilted at wild angles. I guess an old woman was buried here. This makes me think of my mom. She's not buried any place but her ashes are spread on the water in front of the house she lived in the last 10 years of her life. This seems out of proportion. Most of her life was lived in Michigan and most of the people she knew were in Michigan but she lived the last years in Port Townsend. I live here now, my sister in LA so I guess we transplanted our selves, individually, to the west coast.
Mom's brother Karl and her old friend Elaine (who now lives in Seattle) were at the memorial and told stories of my mom's earlier life. Her friends and acquaintances out here comment on how interesting it is to hear about that part of her life in which she was a very different person.
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A short way past the hill is Old Woman Creek. We paddle up stream a couple bends and camp on a island gravel bar. It is hard working getting up stream - about all we can do to sprint across the strong current from eddy to eddy. The gravel bar is surrounded by river channels on both sides. We set the kitchen at the downstream end and camp on the upstream end.
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