Saturday morning at about 1:30 Slacktide dropped anchor in Mud Bay, bringing me home from the sea. My two-week trip away from the homestead, most of it spent sailing in my brother and sister-in-law’s homebuilt sailboat, has come to an end. Now, more than a full day later, I’m showered, dressed in clean clothes, sitting at my place at the table with my majestic view of the Mountain With No Name. I am, however, still gently swaying, unconsciously compensating for the cabin’s gentle rocking in the waves . . . .
S/V Slacktide at Coghlan Island outside of Auke Bay, Alaska, with Mendenhall Glacier in the background (Photo: Mark Zeiger)
What a trip! It would be futile to try to adequately describe all the details in this space. How to express in words the joy of returning to remembered places, the excitement of finally exploring new ones that had only been glimpsed or hinted at previously? Perhaps a brief, incomplete list of the highlights:
Seeing friends in Juneau unexpectedly.
Being joined by two friends, brothers, for the first part of the leg from Juneau to Haines.
Bears on the beaches, mountain goats on the heights.
The swirl of bioluminescence as a humpback whale surfaced between us and the shore in the dark.
The dramatic glacial ravines and valleys in the Chilkat Range behind Sullivan Island.
Autumn colors on the alpine meadows and shores.
Autumn foliage at the base of the Chilkat Range, behind Sullivan Island (Photo: Mark Zeiger)
Late evenings, after anchoring, relaxing and talking with Dave and Anke over a glass of wine before a good night’s sleep.
Now I’m home, and it’s time to pick up the pieces of my life. First and foremost, I have to try to catch up on two weeks of missed hugs and kisses from Michelle and Aly. Then I have to return to the routine of homestead work, including getting back to this blog (and didn’t Michelle and Aly do a great job filling in while I was gone? More, please!). Moose hunting season starts in about 4 days. And, before I left, I seemed to remember being very excited and preoccupied by a new book of short stories, which I hardly thought of while I was gone.
It’s time to readjust. No doubt it’ll get easier once the cabin stops rocking . . . .