Heat Wave

First of all, so sorry that I haven't posted in awhile!  I've been waiting on a picture from one of my friends and I finally have it now, so I can post. :)

Second, last week we had quite a heat wave in Southeast Alaska.  New record highs were set in many places; Juneau hit the mid to high 80s, Yukatat set new records three consecutive days, and Sitka hit a whopping 77 degrees Wednesday last week.

What do people without air conditioning do when it hits nearly 80 degrees and out average summer temperature is about 62, you ask??? Well, we swim.  Anywhere we can.

And that is exactly what my friends and I did, several days in a row.  As soon as we got off work it was a mad rush to change and then try new swimming holes. 

First was the rope swing out towards Herring Cove.  It's this massive rope, probably 9 inches around, attached to a tree about 15 feet above the ocean.  Took me about 15 minutes to talk myself into actually swinging on it, but I'm sure glad I did! 

Not exactly my most flattering photo ever, but proof that I did do it!

A few days after to rope swing was the day that the mercury topped out at 77 scalding degrees.  After moving boats around all day and paddling, we were all ready for something cold.  All my coworkers, their significant others, their dogs, and I trooped the 2 miles up to Heart Lake (there's a picture of the lake in an earlier post) and blissfully swam in the snow-melt fed mountain lake for a good hour.  It was lovely. 

While I don't enjoy working when it's so hot out, I do indeed love how joyous a feeling it is to submerge into cool water after a long day. 

Fingers crossed that it gets hot again soon!

Good karma is...

A sunny day off in Southeast!

So far, almost every day that I have completely off from work, it ends up being cloudy or rainy or something less than ideal.  But Sunday was the exception!  It was a glorious weather day.  Sunny, just little puffy clouds, and a high about 64.  Can't find a thing to complain about.

Ever since going out to the Fortress of the Bear that first time (it was raining), I've been wanting to go when it's sunny to see them play.  So that's what I did.  They were so cute.  They spent most of their time in the water and, with all that fur, I don't blame them.  It was really warm out.

Om noms on some salmon

Oh don't mind me, just playin' with my tire....

...and sitting on it

I must be missing something, tires are apparently very comfortable naptime spots.  Who knew?

We're cute and we know it!

After spending some time with the bears, my friend Cailen and I decided that we should go on a hike.  Neither of us had been up the Thimbleberry Creek trail yet so we decided on that one.  It had moderate elevation gain and is very well maintained, making it a perfect hike for an afternoon.  We saw a bunch of lupine just starting to bloom and salmonberry bushes transitioning from blooms to fruit.  Hopefully I'll beat the bears to some of the salmonberries once they are ripe!  The trail makes it's way past 2 small lakes (Thimbleberry and Heart) and continues one to become part of a much larger loop system, but we only went the 1.8 miles to Heart Lake.

Banana slug!!!!

Bear Mountain above Heart Lake

All in all, I'd say it was a great day off and I can only hope that I get lucky enough to have another day off be just as gorgeous! 

PS - if you want to view the pictures bigger than they show up in the posts, just click on the photo and it'll become a larger slideshow that you can scroll through!

A "swell" boat ride

Today wasn't horrible, the weather was nice and I had a good day at work and got off early and got some chores done.  But it was also a day when I didn't get to paddle. 

So I decided to take it upon myself to make it better.  And how did I do that?  I found a way to get on the water. 

We had a half day tour that one of my bosses, John, had to go pick up with the boat late this afternoon.  He knows that I don't get on the water as much as I'd like and that I always enjoy being out on the ocean, so I called him and asked if I could tag along on the boat ride.  He let me go and while it was only a short 20 minute jaunt to Middle Island, it was also the highlight of my day.  

 The weather was pretty good; no rain, light breeze out of the southeast, and mostly cloudy.  There was quite a really big swell though; probably the result of some big storm hundreds of miles away.  It could have been pouring rain and I wouldn't have minded (ok, maybe a little bit), but something about being off shore always improves my mood no matter what. 

I really like how this turned out.  Someday I want to get this printed on canvas (one of those ones where the picture wraps around the sides so there's no external frame)!

Mt Edgecumbe

Part of the Cheichi Island group

The iPhone takes surprisingly good quality pictures! Now, we did see multiple sea otters but we were moving to fast to get a good picture.  Though adorable, they are rather skittish of small boats slowing down near them.  This is most likely a behavioral trait that's resulted through the traditional hunting of sea otters by the native peoples from small watercraft.  They're still beyond cute though!  Hopefully I'll get a good picture of them someday.  Add that to the goal list!