Lighthouse Ramblings

19 July
I awoke early this morning. It was so peaceful all I could do was smile and reach out and pet the soft ears of Percy who lay nearby. It was a nice respite from a restless night. For some reason I had a lot of trouble sleeping, constantly waking to toss and turn.
I have so many great plans for the future and things I want to accomplish. Thankfully Turn Point and Patos give me a chance to really tink about all of the logistics of each dream. I have so many plans in general for the coming year and I really hope that I can stay true to my course and do them I think of the dream I have to become the US top female white-water kayaker, and realistic that is. It is a daunting task to face, and the question is am I really up for it.
The water is eerily calm. Candlestick fish create the only ripples on the water as they jump and swim. Likewise the air is still, as if lying in wait for something bigger. Not another person or a boat for miles and the only sounds of humanity come from squawks on the VHF. In the distance I can clearly see the Olympic mountains. With the weather as it is, they seem bigger today. Their snow-capped peaks feeling closer then before. There is some stirring in the mattress of kelp off the point. The baby seal cries out for its mother as it vainly tries to climb upon the slippery stalks. It splashes back down into the water, each one sounding loud and percussive in this ‘anticipating air’.
I wonder if the weather is a precursor to what I can expect as far as visitors today. The past few days I have seen over a hundred people both days, but I also saw someone by 9:30 in the morning. It is 10:30 now and not a soul has approached the point.
I get all sorts of interesting folk that come out here. I am used to the ones that complain about the hike, even tho it looks like they should be hiking more often. I am also used to all of the other sorts of folks that find their way down here, camp kids, aging boaters, those on kayak tours, and the likes. In spite of all of that, I still get broad-sided every now and then by folks that absolutely baffle me. Like today I was moving wood chips down to the keepers quarters when a fellow and his grandson came by. He offered up his grandson to help me carry the buckets. I gladly accepted and then we walked down to the point. I ended up talking with the grandfather, feeling the whole time that something was ‘off’ about this soft spoken man.
Like many he asked if there was an easier way back to Reid harbor. I try not to laugh at people, the walk is not as bad as they make it seem. I told him ‘no’ and that he shouldn’t cross private property to get there. This sparked and annoying and persistent debate which he left by saying “well there is another way to think about all of this, these islands should all be parks.”
This after I said my family still cares for its homestead property. I am trying to see it from his point of view, and when I try I find myself severely conflicted. The land is so beautiful and at times I do wish everyone could enjoy it. However, I have seen how people treat public spaces. It is a romantic ideal to think that only people of good intentions and of a ‘Leave No Trace’ mentality actually compromise the majority of visitors to public spaces. I even see it here, while my general job is to be here for the people and to open the museum, my overall number one priority is to keep honest folks honest. Ask any ranger at any park what their job now entails. They are cops in green pants with a park badge. I think the writer of Nature Noir said it rightly. “The same a-holes in the city are the same a-holes in the woods. Nature doesn’t change people.”
It is a sad but true state of things. I find it every time I walk the property and find beer cans and toilet paper on the ground. Or bits of left-over wrappings from a snack shoved into a tree. As if mother Nature doesn’t mind the extra bit of tinsel crammed down her throat.
I also take issue with his statement on many other levels that I choose not to go into at this moment. My hand would cramp and my eyes would fail before I finished that diatribe.
Linda stopped by later in evening, bringing by more toilet paper for the outhouse. We ended up sitting on the porch talking about the future of the Keepers Quarters and about the joys of dealing with bureaucracy. Right now everything is somewhat at a stale mate as far as progress. Who will and can do what is still up in the air. We ended up discussing the proposed fence and its implications. We both agreed it would be sad to cut off the little bit of view that I do have. I can see a filtered sunset through the trees and sometimes a passing tanker. Now that the trees have been cleared from the water towers, there is ample sun reaching the ground. I can’t wait to see this place after the salal and underbrush has grown up and moss carpets the ground. This place still has an air of hope about it and I hope it isn’t stifled.

A lighthouse journey

8 July 09
Started raining late last night and it looks like it will continue for awhile. Unlike yesterdays drizzle, these are big drops and enough to be of the soaking variety. I am still going to open the museum, but other then that I dont know what I will do. Yesterdays injury to my thumb with my carving tools has left my hand nearly useless for picking up or doing functional things.
After setting up the museum early, around 10, I returned to the porch with my book and watched the boats pass for sometime. The silence of the water was broken when the fast wet puffing exhalations of an Orca surfaced a few hundred feet from the point. I quickly grabbed my radio and camera and rushed down the steps. Although I could not hear any one talking on the net, on account that most of them were in Rosario Strait, I broadcasted out my call-sign, location, and that the pod was south-bound. I voiced it three times with no response and resigned myself to watching them pass when finally my ‘old buddy’ on the Emerald Moon called me and passed the info along. We chatted and shortly thereafter when I was sitting on the porch I heard the captain of the Peregrine voice over the radio “Who ever the lady at the lighthouse is, she has my undying gratitude.”
I chuckled a little to myself and shut the radio off.
Some may see it as harassment, what those boaters are doing. In fact amidst the various conversations on the net yesterday, some humorous, others argumentative, came someone who was unaffiliated to the whale watchers. He didn’t call anyone or say who he was, just “How are things in the whale harassment fleet today.”
This topic has been a constant source of discussion in the area for years. I personally have only a few minor problems with it, because I can list all of the good that comes from it. I hate to also add that it brings a much needed revenue to our tourist based economy. Money that small farms and business just can not seek to provide. I feel they also safely educate people. It is always a travesty to me to see large animals confined to small pens. We say it’s for ‘our knowledge and pleasure’. But if we are the ones that want the experience, shouldn’t we be the ones in cages in THEIR environment?
What a lot of people don’t realize is that with those boats also comes the necessary law enforcement. They don’t only hand out tickets to the public, but also the commercial. The latter sees a fine significantly more hurtful then the former. It is also because of these boats that we are able to pay for researchers etc... Such as the whale-poop sniffing dog and her boat Mojo. How else would we know if the whales have been forced to change their diets because of human effects on fish populations?
It was a rather slow day, partly on the account of the rain. Both linda and Jim came to visit and we discussed everything from the future of TPLPS to power loads. Later in the evening, after supper I went to the school library for more reading material. I spoke with a few locals along the way, and ended up bringing back a collection of work by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripidies, and Aristophanes. I also picked up two other books, but it wont hurt to read some classical literature while I am out here.
I finally did walk along part of the deer trail out the back door, but only because Percy and Rose decided to go for a romp in the woods for over twenty minutes. I have been a little worried because Percy has been limping noticeably the past few days.