Went to the cabin on Friday with the portabote punt planning to leave the big skiff on the haul out, and row the portabote to Admiralty to deer hunt on Sat. Forecast called for big winds and rain. Forecasters were not kidding. Saturday morning I went down to the boat and seas too big to get to Admiralty. So, I returned to cabin. I had a pair of military fleece overalls with holes in it that I was going to cut up to fix some other items. I’d pulled the zipper pulls out of my Outdoor Products backpack that is attached to my bullpac, so I decide to sew in a new zipper using the zipper from the sacrificial overalls. I simply cut out the zipper from the overalls and sewed it to either side of the zipper on the pack. It was a pretty significant job and took a couple hours by hand using dental floss for the thread. I also used a piece of the overalls and zipper to sew in a pocket on my hunting overalls.
I listened to the UW Huskies game against Oregon State on the local station. That took me to about 330 pm, which is sundown. I took a break from sewing, and hoped to find a station on my old radio that was carrying the Washington State game, as coach Leach is one of my favorite sports characters. Sure enough, I was able to tune into 710 KIRO from Seattle, and got the game tuned in. I then started to prepare the pocket for the hunting overalls. WSU took it to Arizona the first half, scoring over 50 points. I checked the boat on the haulout again near sunset.
Sunday forecast was not much better than the Saturday weather. I cleaned up the cabin for next week in the event Sara and my niece Francesca came over. I loaded the boat and got off the beach without incident. I checked the crabpots and had 8 keepers. When I got home, i steamed the crab, picked the meat whilst i watched NFL games, then put the shells in a pot and made stock.
My long-time buddy Geoff had on his Facebook post that he’d gone vegan to support sustainability. He’s a professor at a South Carolina University. and I thought how non-sustainable being a vegan in Alaska would be. Rather than eating the deer, moose, salmon, halibut, ling cod, and crab we can catch right outside our door (except the moose, I guess), I’d be eating greens probably grown on the West Coast, along with my own fiddleheads and berries I could get here. Sustainability is where you find it, me thinks. I thought after reading his post – can you imagine a prospector on the Yukon saying – no, I’m not going to harvest the grouse and moose and salmon on my doorstep. I’m going to gather berries and hope the paddlewheeler has the flour and dried apples I ordered a year ago to get me through the winter…..