Friday, July 22, 2011

Day 52 ~ Shearwater to Dawson’s Landing, Rivers Inlet

 It was interesting how different it is with more or less people on board. This particular morning, not a sound could be heard and I really didn’t want to get up. But, I was concerned that the new Navigator boat would leave and we would miss our opportunity to get their contact information. Armed with our new touch cards to notify people of our organization and rendezvous, Dad and I went off to introduce ourselves. We visited with the folks on the 4 EVVA and then wandered farther down the dock to Dan and Mimi’s boat. They are delightful people.  They told us about a bear sanctuary that we floated right past near Wrangell. We hung around as long as we should holding dearly to our ability to talk on the phone and then sadly departed Shearwater towards Dawson’s landing.

We selected Lama Passage for our course because last time we were in the area we went through Gun Boat Passage. Along the way, Dad and I changed our course and went exploring up Fish Egg Inlet. It is amazing how many things we missed on our way up. I’m certain that we could spend a considerable amount of time exploring this whole area.

We arrived in Dawson’s landing to wind and current and I got a 9.5 on my docking score – with lots of people watching. It was really fun to approach a challenging task and not be scared. I felt that I had received plenty of training and I knew from my experience how the boat was going to react and I could control the situation and I could be successful. I was confident through the whole docking execution. Every day at work employees should experience the same. My only disappointment in the whole thing was that after I landed I wanted to share my success with Wendy and my phone wouldn’t work.


We had a fabulous dinner. I had a cookbook that has hundreds of ways to cook halibut and I was going through it when I saw one recipe for Au gratin halibut and one for barbequed halibut. Dad had been talking about barbequing a salmon which I hadn’t done and I had Au gratin potatoes that I could fix for a dinner. One of the key ingredients was chili sauce, which we had onboard so I was off and running. I made the barbeque sauce from scratch and grilled halibut with the barbeque sauce, combined it with Au gratin potatoes and steamed broccoli. It was delicious and in the end there wasn’t a drop of anything left.

After dinner we tried to get on the internet, which turned out to be our biggest challenge of the day. We watched as our one bar came and went. We also watched a sleek black cat walk up the dock and onto the boat across the dock from us. He explored the boat and then left.

Dawson’s Landing is a village of several float houses that lashed together. They, unlike other float house villages in the area operate year round. Reportedly a sixty two pound salmon was caught just the day before out in front of the area. We were one of ten boats on the dock and were told that it was the busiest that they had been all year.

Before we went to bed both Becca and I had showers and Becca braided my hair. I’m so over due for a color and hair cut that the only thing I can do with my hair is put it in a pony tail. It was such a treat to get my bangs out of my eyes. It is also note worthy that for the first time in 20 years I don’t have a single artificial nail. I’ve lost them ALL. My finger tips were so sore that typing had become a challenge.



No comments:

Post a Comment