Tutka Bay Part 2

We let ourselves sleep in the next morning. It was just too nice to have a bed and some space to sleep without someone stepping over your head or waking up because the entire camper shook simply because someone rolled over. Yes, it’s that unstable.

Even though it was raining again, I enjoyed the quiet. And being able to see outside a window while sitting in the warm house - rather than trapped in a windowless camper. While everyone slept, I sipped my tea and read my Bible and a chapter out of this really great book I picked up off Bernadette’s shelf, The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw. It’s all about a fisherwoman who fishes swordfish out of Gloucester, MA. She’s a great writer with a fantastic story.

I finally roused everyone with pancakes as Randy popped over, wondering where we were. It was another cold, rainy day so we piled into their houseboat to pass the time visiting, playing games, and reading. I was relieved that my kids became deeply enthralled with a large stack of old comic books that they poured over for hours. Archie, Casper the friendly ghost, Richie Rich… they were content to just sit and enjoy in front of the woodstove. It’s not typical for them to be still for that length of time.

The comic books had been salvaged from an old A frame behind the guest boat where the original owner had first lived. Randy and Bernadette have quite the story about how they ended up here. They arew up together in MA and Randy had followed a friend to Alaska once out of high school. Shortly after, Bernadette followed Randy. He had made his way to Homer and was fishing and renting a cabin on Cronin Island from Mr. Cronin who had homesteaded it years ago. They lived there for a few years, even bringing their first born, Sara, home from the hospital to that cabin. Shortly after, The Alaskan Native Land act was passed and several thousand acres of land was given back to the native people from the state of Alaska. Poor Mr. Cronin had failed to file his paperwork properly on his island and it was handed over to the natives with no compensation awarded back to him. I can understand why to this day he is still bitter over the subject. Because of this, Randy and Bernadette needed to move on. At this point, Randy had built their houseboat and at times it would float in the waters off Cronin island. It didn’t sound as romantic as you might think. Living on a moving building sounds like a challenge. I can’t remember exactly how they met Mildred, but she had been living alone in the summer on Tutka Bay as her husband Frank had passed away. She invited Randy and Bernadette to move into her cove and keep an eye on the place (it was being vandalized when she wasn’t there) and in exchange they would pay the land taxes. Long story short, she eventually bought a houseboat to replace the A frame (which looked like a tough place to live even in its prime - tucked into the dark woods, Visquine for windows.) The original cabin on the beach was destroyed when the whole peninsula sunk 6 feet during the 1964 earthquake. The chimney still stood, but the rest of the building had slowly been swept out to sea, the high tides gradually eating away at the cabin that was no longer out of reach. Apparently they were so shaken after the quake that they put the next cabin way up the hill. Years later when Mildred passed away, the Arsenault's bought the land.

Bernadette mentioned she was disappointed we were planning to head back to town that night and, pleasantly surprised we weren’t too much, immediately decided another night in that dry and spacious houseboat sounded wonderful, not to mentioned another evening with these good people.

Despite the rain, we had a three day fishing license for those of us over 16. So we planned to go back to the lagoon to make it worth while. The boys headed to the OldSquaw to fillet the salmon from the day before first. They came back for lunch and then we bundled up in real rain gear (for which I was so, so thankful for later) and headed out. Randy had a king salmon to pick up at Jakalof from a friend and so he dropped us off to run his errand. We all fished from the shore and again it was fish, after fish, after fish. And again, we were tossing back the pinks so we could collect more reds! We ended up with 13 reds and almost 50 fish altogether. It took Randy a while to run his errand and we were all, Abbey especially, ready to head back to the warm houseboat. It turns out it was a good thing we had decided to stay the night. Randy said we couldn’t have even gotten to Jakalof with everyone because it was so nasty. The wind had really picked up and it was making waves that might have swamped the skiff of a less skilled boatsman than Randy. He knew exactly how to point the skiff so that the direction of the waves hit the skiff correctly. Once again, a situation that may have been scary without a competent guide, but we were worry free in his good hands. We got splashed with a few waves and I was grateful for the rubber coat and pants we were wearing instead of our flimsy raincoats that really only hold up to a light sprinkle. The girls and I got dropped off to find Bernadette waiting with tea and a large chocolate cake which we gratefully consumed. I was sure I would need a warm shower, but once my hands had warmed up, the gear had kept me so dry, I was fine.

The boys had stayed out to fillet the fish in the now quite terrible weather. Even though it was now dinner time, Bernadette loaded them up with a huge piece of chocolate cake alongside a mug of cocoa while they dried off and waited for hot dogs. The boys eyed me to see if I was going to let them “spoil their supper” but when in Alaska, do as the Alaskans do, and today it was chocolate cake before dinner for which they were thrilled.

I bundled the girls over to bed but the rest of us were reluctant to go to bed and have the wonderful evening end. We sat around the tiny room and swapped stories, mostly those of Randy and Bernadette and their adventures over the years living up here year long, raising and homeschooling their two girls, Katie and Sara (Katie we had visited in Oregon if you remember from an earlier post). I kept telling Malachi and Elias to get to bed but Malachi whined, “But I don’t want to miss the stories!” Just as we were about to give in and go to bed, a message blurred over the CB “any info on the tsunami threat in Kachemak Bay”. Suddenly, everyone was quiet and Randy was at the radio. We scooted the boys to bed but the rest of us hovered in the kitchen, waiting to find out if there really was an alarm. The tsunami warning system located in Seldovia couldn’t be heard out this far so you are at the mercy of the radio. Randy sent us to bed with a walkie talkie so he could let us know if there was anything to worry about. About 20 minutes later he called over to give us the “all clear”.