Friday, September 25, 2009

Day 2: Beach Coaming at Its Best

24 September 2009: Thursday














I like exploring between some of the wing dams along the river, behind Martin Slough, Burke Island and various other places. We spend many hours walking in the sun and enjoying the beaches, the glorious plants, seeing many beaver signs and racoons prints. The tide is out which always is so revealing. After trekking for a while Con names me, HIRAWATHA, which seems to fit my basic nature and love of exploring.















Stretching my back on timbers of a wing dam.

Tidal carvings of the beach.

Beaver cuttings.











We see lots of wildlife, deer with twin fawns, eagles and a nest, a few remaining osprey, merganzers, killdeer, hear the cackling of migrating sandhill cranes, and a pair of wood ducks. Not to mention all the commorants, Great Blue herons and canada geese. I show Con all the pumice stones on the beaches of varying sizes still left from the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
We dinghy and walk for 3 1/2 hours.
Con has a little trouble getting back on Shatoosh from Pashmina and starts to fall back off the gunnel on top of me, but together she ends up safe on board and not in the drink. Whew, that was close! I've never had anyone fall overboard. This is one first we don't want to have.
Day's run: 6nm
Total run: 23.6nm