June 13: Rohan arrived!

After picking up Rohan very very early in the morning and then returning to the cabins to make hash browns, bacon, and biscuits with bacon gravy our workday started with working on Harry's boat and ended in a bonfire. But the events were otherwise unrelated. Here you can see Roger in the foreground with AJ and Jeff behind him, and Jake up in the boat trying to keep the fenders off the hull that is about to be painted. A strange weather thing happened while we were painting: we frequently were rained on, despite blue skies all around us. Sometimes it just sprinkled; other times it poured, but somehow the boat we were painting seemed to be right under a rain cloud, surrounded by blue skies.

Even though he had just arrived and brought many of the items we needed, this pictures shows that Rohan was not exempted from painting. His sleepless night in the airport the night before might have impaired his ability with a paintbrush.

One of the great highlights of being in town is mug-up. I've mentioned it before, but haven't provided a photo until today. When I am feeling nutritionally correct, I try to avoid the experience, but usually, I don't manage. This crew does not even comprehend the idea of trying to resist these offerings.

Mug up is almost a sacred experience. My crew likes to plan its trips to town around mug up - 10 am and 3 pm, and I think they might consider the provision of mug up to our buyer's most important responsibility. Why do I think that? Everyone calls on Roy a lot. Especially early in the season, he is pulled in many different directions. He has to keep all the stuff running: beach trucks, fork lifts, help out in the processing plant, staff vehicles, tenders, fishing boats and skiffs, plus miscellaneous tasks like keeping propane tanks filled. That's a lot for one person, though he does have good help now (up until they will be needed at the freezer plant across the street). His job is to keep it all moving so that by the end of the season, AGS makes its pack. That means the fishing fleet has to keep fishing, tenders and beach trucks have to keep taking delivery, processing equipment has to keep running, fork lifts have to keep moving the product and other stuff around. So he has to go through a sort of triage process to figure out where to allocate his time among the many requests he receives. He would like to do it all, and I think it is a bit painful for him when he has to give a lower priority to some tasks. I was explaining this to Jeff and mentioned as an example that I saw Roy working on the mug up van (the van that they use to bring the donuts from the kitchen down to the mug up room on the dock) and Jeff immediately responded: no matter what, that should be the top priority. And that's with two of our skiffs sitting on the dock, out of commission. Hence, a mug up photo.

Phil and Tom of the Goatroper have moved to Silver Bay, a new fish processing plant that is fisherman-owned... and we all miss each other. So we decided to have a bonfire. At first, the idea was just to get together around a fire. But

my crew needed to eat so Rohan (still with very little sleep), AJ, and I left the boat painting job and rushed back to the cabin to start getting the bratwursts and s'mores together, as well as the multiple salads we would feed ourselves and our guests. Happily, our guests were running a bit late, so we were ready by the time they arrived.

Phil, Harry, and Tim are part of a radio group, meaning they look after each other on the water, and let each other know if they find fish so the others can come and share in the bounty.

I was happy to see that Phil and Tom brought Tim, his crew (son Jack, daughter Leah, and brother John). Tim and Jack are in this photo,

and Leah, standing with Jeff, is in the next one.

This photo of John foreshadows the next section about the great musical talent that visited us at the bonfire. It took a bit to persuade him to play since rain isn't good to guitars.

Carbon and Millie (their captain's daughter and Carbon's deckmate) also caught a ride with the radio group.

Here is Carbon, tending the fire.

We were also happy that our new friend David (from Hawaii) got a ride from his captain (Ralph).

Here are David and Millie are sitting together, listening to our live music(!!!). But we'll get to that in a minute.

The rest of the crew was also at the bonfire. They got it started in the first place, and I'm happy to say that no petroleum products were involved.

Here is AJ, the newest member of our crew. He is an eager learner and a willing worker. After cutting up many of the vegetables we needed for our salads, he went out and helped the rest of the crew start the fire.

Luckily for AJ, David has been his main teacher so far instead of me. I can't really say where David got his patience, but he has a lot of it, to the benefit of just about anything we want to do. Here, he is explaining solar power to someone. As he's been explaining his work to me, I find it astonishing that people aren't lining up for access to a free solar power system. I wonder if they fear they are being tricked, having learned probably through many harsh experiences, that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. But as far as I can see - and I've asked a lot of questions - the opportunities David's company is providing are as good as they seem. If the customer will agree to have a solar power generating system installed on their property - at no cost to them - they will get the benefit of the power it generates. Why not agree to that? Again, David's excellent supply of patience benefits everyone as they try to wrap their minds around the opportunity.

This is a photo of Roger the day the last piece of his welding equipment made it to Naknek. I think it was a big relief... now he has to decide whether he wants to try to generate business. It is so great to have him on the crew. Even if he doesn't know how some piece of equipment works (and he does understand how many of them work), he has confidence that it actually makes sense and that he is capable of understanding it. That's a huge advantage when he's trying to fix something.

I think Rohan was doing remarkably well, especially considering that he arrived this morning at 7:30 am after arriving in Anchorage the night before at about 1 am. The Anchorage airport is not a restful place, but here he is, just a little before midnight the next night still awake, no longer covered in paint, participating fully as we can just about always expect him to do.

After those of us who wanted to eat did so and we had a break in the weather, we started to learn about the depth of musical talent in our little group. Here are Phil and John, singing together sometimes and in turn other times. Live music, especially when it's intimate like this, has a big effect on me. It feels like it sort of cranks my heart open and I think it's the feeling that the word "thrill" was invented for.

As I listened to them play, I started thinking that even though I always wish I had been born with musical talent - or maybe it's just musical courage - maybe if I were, I wouldn't get this feeling of a thrill whenever someone plays music in my presence. I'm sure that people who do have musical talent still feel something pretty darned great when they use that talent, but maybe those of us without talent get a small extra benefit of the appreciation of the preciousness of the gift. After Phil and John played for a while, Jake blended in with his mouth harp - it was like eating this delicious ice cream, and suddenly finding a caramel ribbon you didn't expect. That's it: Jake's harmonica was a caramel ribbon.

And when we adopted David (from Hawaii), we had no idea that he was talented as well as kind and brave. So imagine our pleasure when he took up one of the guitars and started playing along. For me, nothing really compares to being where people are making music. However, the rest of the evening was also just pure joy.

It was a beautiful night with a brisk breeze blowing onshore. It was a little chilly, but we had the fire. I remembered that I've had a stunt kite hanging in my porch for more than 20 years - maybe more than 30. We've used it during that time, but in recent years, it seems like we've always been too busy. So I was glad to remember it tonight. Phil, Tom, their guests, and Tim and his family had to leave just about as the kites came out, but the rest of us weren't done with the day yet. It turns out that operating stunt kites is yet another skill area for Jake. After I tried twice to get it up in the air, Jake got it right there and was able to do tricks with it. I would love to post all the photos, but I decided that I should just choose one. I liked this one because I think it shows the playfulness of the kites, against the moody sky.

And I couldn't resist this picture of the kite fliers, with the picture taken toward the sunset.

And speaking of the sunset, I can say that I still haven't grown tired of them. They aren't always so beautiful, and it isn't always possible to predict which ones will be so glorious. But here is the sunset from the night of the bonfire.

We finally called it a night and took the trucks up to save them from the high tide, taking Carbon, Millie, and David to their vehicle in the process. After Jeff came in, he said something like, "Yeah, it's the biggest moon I've ever seen." And there it was, rising over Naknek, just a few miles to the east of us.