Pacific NW

Expeditions

Fantastic morning! It is always fun to come into an unknown place at night, and not knowing what it looks like, “discover” it upon waking up. And what a place to wake up in!! Culpepper Lagoon is a marine canyon, walled in by towering snow-capped peaks that look like big mounds of shaving cream. Several waterfalls and two creeks plunge into the lagoon. I went for a row and was lured on around each bend in the shoreline by the sublime perfection and stillness of the morning, until I committed myself to a complete circumnavigation of the lagoon, some 2.5 miles in length. I came upon a family of 6 river otters who were very curious to see me. They poked their heads way up out of the water and snorted at me for 10 minutes or so, then disappeared around the next bend. I rowed a bit further and caught up with them, hauled out at a waterfall. They jumped back in and I tried to follow their bubbles as they swam away underwater. 5 minutes later I heard loud snorting in the trees on shore. I looked up, and the otters were all in the branches of a hemlock 10 feet directly above me! I slowly drifted away from the tree, and was followed by 5 or 6 seals on the remainder of the journey. I explored several waterfalls and found the remains of a burned-down cabin, returning to the mothership as the blinding sun spilled down over the shaving cream mountains. We remained in the lagoon the entire warm and still day. Christoph and Lee went exploring on shore and I puttered around on the boat all afternoon, enjoying a well-deserved relaxing day. It was ” the evening of the giant cookie” tonight. After exhausting our cookie supply, Christoph and I became very concerned about what we were going to do without cookies. We were thrilled to discover that we had all the ingredients necessary to bake chocolate chip cookies on the boat! We mixed up a batch, decided it wasn’t enough dough, and doubled it. After adding a bit more extra of everything, we snacked on the dough and formed the rest into a giagantic pie in our biggest skillet. Cooked over the wood stove, and voila! A masterpiece. Another great ending to a great day!