*Got the Ambi into Naknek Lake (OK, so maybe Chris had to come up with the idea of tying it off to the last cleat on the dock and driving the trailer out from under it. Everyone else thought, "Yippee! We're on our way!!" I thought, "How will we get it back on the trailer?")
*Drove it around for a while - got to have an up close visit with a bear on the other bank. (I think Roger got some good photos and I saw that Chris got a photo of the crew taking photos of the bear. But I didn't have the time to harvest others' photos before they left. I'll try to remedy that...)
*We had every intention of taking Sage and even took her for this trial run. But then I got to wondering why I thought it would be OK to bring her, and I called. It wasn't OK. Nor was it safe for her... and probably not for us, either. So that morning, we worked hard to find a place to keep her safe and comfortable enough for the possibly two night camping trip. Once again, we were rescued by Roy.
*Went to the Red Dog and danced all night!! It was so much fun. It's so late in the season to learn that I have a crew of dancers! And singers! Now, when Hugh has a request, if I remember, I make him sing it. On the way back from Katmai, Evan, David, Hugh, and Jake sang us home. Billy Joel's got nothing on them.
*Picked up my very dear friend of 40 years (40?? When did that happen?) and packed her into the Ambi to travel 25 miles through the wind and rain to Katmai. I was on frequent bailing duty. Most of us wore our rain gear, but we didn't have rain gear for our sleeping bags. We reduced the wind's impact by hugging the coast most of the way, making the trip more tolerable (it's tough to make our way through an anticipated vacation, drenched and cold), and longer.
Here they are. As much as possible, they tried to sleep. That's Hugh under the tarp with the blue rain pants sticking out. Jeff is napping on ... something. Jake, Roger, and Evan are manfully taking the spray that regularly drenches them. Jean, as always, is being a good sport. Chris is napping sitting on the dog kennel that contains our backpacks instead of Sage, wrapped in a tarp instead of rain pants (oversight). David is doing his best to keep the spray out of the boat, but with the wind we were in, that challenged even his skill. 
*On our arrival, the rangers told us to store as much of our food and gear as we could in the main food and gear cache's since the campground's were pretty full. It turns out that they weren't full and perishable items (like the hamburger we'd planned for the second night's dinner) is discarded from the main food cache at the end of the day. Dang. *But never fear - we had lots of extra food because the food that had been packed to go on the southbound barge (the canned good that won't freeze well)... went to Katmai with us by accident. It was Roger who finally figured out why we had so much food with us. We had enough for 9 people for 30 days. That knowledge made me feel
better every time I heard a funny sound in the outboard. The clear and beautiful water of Naknek Lake is probably potable (despite Roger's fear of intestinal parasites), and we had plenty of food. And, it turns out, Chris and Hugh can probably build a fire on the water, using only water. But the extra weight of the southbound freight did make for slower going, and encouraged a bit more spray into the boat. We took a break during our trip there - warm up at a fire, roast some hot dogs, do a little exploring. The water is this clear throughout the lake. 
*This brave crew set up our tents and when I realized that I was torn between taking them to the lodge to warm up and fixing dinner for them, I decided to spring for dinner at the lodge's buffet - achieving food, dry, and warm all at once. And this crew made it worth it. They ate pounds of pounds of food. Each. And the food was good. After Jeff got seconds, we overheard Chris explaining to Hugh that he needed to get a new plate each time he went to the buffet line. I looked at Jeff and Jeff looked down saying, "I hoped no one would notice. But how am I supposed to adapt? I use the same plate without washing it for three weeks, and now I'm supposed to use a new plate for seconds in the same meal?" (He was exaggerating, really.) We were so exhausted, we didn't even make it up to the falls to see the bears on our first day there. Chris and Hugh went back to the campground to make a fire. (How did they do that? It was raining and everything was wet.) Jeannie and I dried our sleeping bags over the fire.
*Next day, we eventually made our way to the falls - after the crew ate breakfast: 36 eggs, four cans of black beans, and four lbs of Chinese sausage (with none of the grease poured off. Well, everyone but Hugh made it to the falls - Hugh wanted to fish. And fish he did. He even caught 7. But didn't get to keep them - sometimes because they were snagged other than in the mouth and sometimes because when the bear approaches, the fisherman is required to break the line. Sigh. But the fishing was successful. In fact, Hugh did better than the bears on the falls. Here are some photos with Hugh, Jake, and Chris fishing, and an interested bear, watching. Seems to me that prospects of actually keeping a fish under these circumstances are pretty slim.
*We saw many bears - including one that charged another on the trail right ahead of Jeannie and me as we walked from the campground to the lodge. That's an awesome site. Nothings seems to stop a bear, or escape it. So I think the best hope is to be not at all interesting to one. 
*Several crew members seemed to be succumbing to a cold that's been going around. We decided to visit the Bay of Islands and if a good camping spot presented itself, camp; otherwise, head back home. The Bay of Islands is beautiful and deserves much more time than we gave it. But we didn't fall off the edge... and we didn't find good camping spots - Chris noted that the flat spots looked like they were probably swamps and would be alive with mosquitoes.
*As we were heading back for Lake Camp, David drove slowly so Jeannie and I could cook without stopping the boat (we didn't want to be trying to get the boat on the trailer in the dark). We cooked the bratwursts and polish hot dogs, and some chili, followed by s'mores. All on a moving skiff (though not moving very fast). The return trip had much calmer weather... and we even saw the sun!
*Driving slowly gave us the chance to note the trees on one of the islands seemed to be steaming. It made sense to all of us, considering how wet it had been and now the sun was out. We went in for a closer look (David is a spectacular tour guide) and found that what looked like steam was really a spire of mosquitoes, erupting from each tree. Aieeee! Run away! Run away!
If you squint at this photo you'll see a little dark smudge above each tree - it's not steam.
As the sun came out, spirits rose (except in the stern of the boat where they remained serious and nautical about their navigational responsibilities. There was some question about Evan's qualifications to navigate given the poor luck of his wandering ancestors. And we do note that he is the only one in a life jacket. Ahem.) The bow crew celebrates the appearance of the sun as only those from Montana can truly appreciate. See why I love this crew?
David had estimated our time of arrival and he noted that this detour has put us completely off course and should not be counted when evaluating his time estimation. "That's right," Evan noted, "We are completely off course. Course is over there," he added, helpfully pointing a few feet away.
*Arriving at Lake Camp (remarkably quickly ... and close to David's time estimate), David was able to get the boat onto the trailer without the use of the capstan winch. Yippee!
*We dropped off the boat, picked up Sage, and staggered home, collapsing into bed by about 2 am.
*Slow start the next day - we still needed to winterize the Ambi, do some laundry, start winterizing the vehicles, and pack up the salmon homepack we had spent the summer creating. Then returned to the cabins to finish closing them up (almost), and (dreaded project), raise the stairs. Eek! It's probably the closest the crew has come to wanting to toss me over the cliff. It was late and dark; they all wanted to be done. David had said over and over that he didn't want to be up till 2 am the night before it was time to leave finishing the last minute things. After breaking lines, overwhelming the winch, and scaring ourselves a few times, we took a break for dinner at about midnight (thank you, Jean! It was roasted chicken, and ravioli from the freezer). It didn't take long for us to throw in the towel for the night when we returned and found that it actually had gotten darker (I didn't think it could) and the bugs were impossible. (I think they may have followed us from those bug spires.) We got to bed by a little before 2 (sorry, David!)
*Jean helped me figure out what to do differently with the winch to enable it to lift those stairs. We needed to move it closer to the cliff, so the direction of pull is pretty much vertical, and not taking a turn once it reaches the top of the cliff. That would entail using chain to affix it to the screw anchor, and wire rope to overcome the stretching and breaking problem.
*David's plane was scheduled to leave the next morning (this morning) at 9:25 - he had to be checked in and ready to fly 40 minutes before the departure time. Anxious, we arrived quite early. He called from Anchorage to tell me that his flight had been delayed in King Salmon for two hours, due to fog. During his wait, he learned about how to preserve roe, and he got some fringe impact of an exploded can of bear mace. He reported that talking to his seat mates, he saw the PenAir staff running flat out into the terminal. They ran out too, ahead of the staff, but not completely ahead of what they were running from. Bear mace hurts, and for a while.
I returned and started the biscuits for breakfast, with Spanish Chicken Stew (from Trader Joe's) for the gravy, and three lbs of bacon. Finally, I noticed that it was getting late so hurried out to get the final effort on the stairs set up while I still had the help of this stellar crew.
Roger was already out there setting it up as Jean and I had envisioned the night before. I joined him - shackles, caribiners, chains, wire ropes, guide ropes, line of pull... ready! While the stairs were still somewhat in place, the crew took their luggage down to the white truck (under cover of the canopy). Finally they were all there; they were ready. This rigging lifted it! And Jake was right, pulling up from the bottom, with the winch to the left would pull the bottom of the stairs to the left and drop the top to the right. Yep. Rearrangement of the guide ropes and securing the top to another anchor farther back. Pull again. A big boulder in the way. Lift the stairs, move the boulder. Pull again. Caught on the support for the winch... running into the hook... binding the rope... need more slack! Tie off the other support and let the wire rope out... Finally at the tipping point (it's getting late... we should be going!) Hold it down, change the pull position. Finally - it's up. (Note: next year, try grabbing it in the mid-section, just below the tipping point.) Now, quick! Eat breakfast! (Jean has finished the biscuits and stew, and cooked the bacon.) The first three to finish breakfast take the red truck into town... Go! You have 30 minutes. Pick up Roger's fish (Evan's fish spent the night in his duffel... in the freezer), look for Hugh's missing clothing in the laundry (he suffered many clothing losses due to laundry mishaps this year), pull all the heavy containers of fish-to-be-air-freighted to the truck, and get to the airport! I chased around after those who were not yet packed and piled them into the white truck and headed in. Jake shadowed the red truck on the four wheeler. Having all the vehicles in town helps me finish putting them up for the winter.
*It was a race to the airport - we were in contact by phone. Did we need to stop and help at AGS? Did they find Hugh's clothes? They had it all under control, so we sped past AGS and went straight to the airport. Hugh and Jeff went in and got in line to check in. Jean and I brought in everyone else's luggage and called. They were almost there. We had 8 minutes for everyone to be checked in, including their baggage. I saw Chris going past to the other terminal in the red truck and just yelled for him. He is quick (though the truck's brakes aren't), but he arrived shortly with the air
freight fish just heaved into the back. (They were right not to take the time to arrange it neatly.) With maybe one or two minutes to spare, they were checked in and on their way to the other terminal for the security check. Chris observed that the red truck may have achieved a new speed record on its way to King Salmon in their desperation. "Yeah," added Evan, "50."
*After seeing the crew off (they were excited - some wanted to see the sun again; I was sad), Jean and I ran many King Salmon errands, including the beginning of getting the salmon freighted. That was the first 476 lbs. We rushed back down to AGS to pull the rest of the freight-able salmon from the freezer... the next 505 lbs. Hmmm... almost to the 1000 lb price break, and the AGS freezer wouldn't be open till Saturday when Jean and I will be leaving. Ok, we went back to AGS to get the last 250 lbs to send by air freight instead of luggage.
And then we went back to the cabin and ate smoked salmon.
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