June 28: Things I take for granted

I think and hope that this will be the last day with such limited Internet access. Even though I haven't really gotten used to having Internet access on the tundra - it was only ... 5 years ago, maybe, that this became possible - I have become frighteningly dependent on it, and it's actually quite fragile with many potentially weak links.

The cabin needs to have electricity. We've managed that with a generator, solar panels, and three big batteries in my loft with a spider's web of wires leading to them from the solar panels and leaving them to the inverter and the DC lights.

Then the inverter has to work, and the socket it plugs into that attaches to the battery. The photo shows the inverter and the brown plug that has the Internet antenna and router on it. It is sitting on the battery charger which is attached to the battery in case the panels can't keep up with the demand on the batteries. When we run out of battery juice, we run the generator to power the devices and to charge the battery. When we do that, we move the brown plug to the strip powered by the generator, so as not to draw from the battery as we charge it.

Then the antenna needs power to receive a signal - that was the most recent replacement (which I hope is the last fix for keeping us connected this season). Then the signal needs to make it back into the cabin, either to the computer or to the router to be picked up wirelessly by everyone's devices. Of course, the router and the devices also present opportunities for disruptions. There are many links in this chain that can be broken and I find it surprising that even knowing that, it is easy to come to assume that we'll have access. Now that we seem to again, it feels like luxury; by tomorrow, it might start to feel standard again.

In addition to Maeve's trip to King Salmon yesterday to get the replacement power converter, we fished and I'm very happy that Sarah is now in service as a photographer. When we come in after initially setting and running through the nets, we return to the nets before the tide turns. The Bathtub is the easiest boat to move if it goes dry on the beach, so that's the one we run in with. Here we are, ready to go back out again.

When we are out there, sometimes if we're not too cold and we don't have much time before we need to go through again or it's almost time to pick up the nets, we just clip on to each other and hang out. This is when we learned the depth of Evan's sea shanty and Billy Joel songs and other secrets about one another. Except for the sea shanty and Billy Joel secret, what is revealed on the water, stays on the water (usually).


It was almost time to pick up the nets. When it's slow (and the fishing has been slowly increasing), we'll look for ways to entertain ourselves, like racing through the net with one skiff starting at the outside end and the other starting at the inside end, racing to get past the middle.