July 2 2016: Bear fest - look both ways before you go

We're in for an hour, planning to head back out an hour before high water, at noon. We have a lot of wind today and David N tells me the weather forecast says it will get stronger. The Ambi crew went through our two nets and the crew did great! It is very hard in weather like this. We got little but tundra - surprising. Usually we have more fish on days of strong weather.

We'll go back out and go through the nets. If the wind does pick up a lot and the fishing doesn't, we will probably pull early to save ourselves the risks that the rough weather brings. It's not that we won't fish in rough weather. It's just that it increases our risk a bit ... and risk or not, it's just harder, and we still have some kings to clean from yesterday.

I went to sleep last night in a thunder storm. When I woke up, I went to the cliff to find that the tide had been very high on the beach... and left what looks like a momma seal and a brand new baby, still in its fresh baby wrapping. Both were dead and had been ravaged by bears. I think there was more than one bear.

This photo shows the seal carcasses washed up on the beach. The momma is nearest the camera, the baby down at the end of the garden hose. If you look a little beyond the baby’s body and to the left, you’ll see the foot of our stairs. The two brown heaps are clumps of tundra. The baby’s body was undisturbed but the momma was partially eaten. I don’t know what the bear(s) were doing around the momma’s carcass. She was on top of a high spot on the sand - a few inches higher than the rest of the sand. So what’s with those claw marks? Maybe the bear was trying to bury the body? If so, it didn’t do a very good job. Marking territory?

Here are some more tracks, a little bit on the other side of the stairs. I don’t know if this was the bear tango floor or what. Were they wrestling?

But these ain’t no trifling bears. That is my not-so-dainty slipper next to the bear print. So: everyone has to remember to look both ways before leaving the cabin.