Day 12, 12 June 2015

130 visitors

Fred Working on the Bathroom Shutter

Today we got to sleep in even more since start time was noon for tours, though I couldn’t sleep past 8:30 am and got up to get a nice cup of tea with a shot of Bailey’s for sweetness. I did a few chores while Fred snoozed away. I resupplied some things in the gift shop, resupplied the treasure chest with necklaces, pretty, colored rubber sea creatures and rubber banana slugs! They are all individually wrapped and I had to unwrap them. Then I moved onto inserting the printed pages of the text of our blog into the logbook that lives in the lighthouse. This log expresses the daily experience we have here. During all this I stirred up some red velvet brownies and threw them in the oven. They finished as I completed my chores. After a shower and breakfast of the brownies, milk and a banana, I was ready to face the tours for the day. We were feeling a bit better than yesterday morning but still not 100 %. I got my gum and water and we assumed our positions. I started in the gift shop with Fred on the first floor, Terrie on the second and Leon in the tower. Again we just had a few minutes to talk before we started and didn’t see much of them at all. The wind was strong and we didn’t raise the flag. It was cool due to the wind and the shutter outside the bathroom upstairs rattled loudly all night long and into the morning. That HAD to get fixed! Fred fixed the one downstairs at our radio room window that was annoying also.

Our Daily Walk Checking out Isthmus, Waves were Pretty Big
Video below Shows the Waves 

The visitors came at a good pace and the time flew by. I switched with Fred at about 2 pm and he did the gift shop and I gave tours on the first floor. Little did I know that the visitors would really start to show up for our last two hours of operation. I went from one group right to another non-stop at a fast pace. We wanted to get everyone through before the tide came in just after 4 pm. We did just that and had one group left just past 4 and they bought some goodies and we sent them on their way. One lady told me that she had seen a whale and was very thrilled about that.

Half Table Overlooking the Ocean, Note Smoke from Fire

After everyone left Fred fixed the noisy shutter upstairs. He fashioned a chock out of a piece of wood he found in the boathouse – our workhouse now. He slipped it in place by reaching out the window. Ahhh – silence. It was pounding so much last night, the whole bathroom was shaking and even the sink, which is against the wall with the shutter. A few people were still about even though the tide was rising and Fred let them know about the tide. I restocked some items in the gift shop and Fred alerted me to some whales that he saw about 400 yards from the island about due west. It was about 5:30 pm. We sat on a picnic table in the sun and wind and watched the giant beasties with our eyes and binoculars, delighting in their presence. Then a father and son showed up round the corner and we were surprised to see them since the tide was approaching very fast. They had sandals on and were not concerned. We chatted with them and showed them where the whales were appearing. They were very happy to see them also and cheerily went back down to cross over before it was too late. Fred did take a look to make sure they crossed OK. We continued to watch the whales for a bit and I walked around to check on my flowers, which were taking a beating from the winds. Only the forget me knots looked bad and I watered them all hoping for the best.

Shot along the Old Garden Fence Looking at the Smoke

Back inside, Fred went upstairs to watch some TV and I started the blog and had a snack of guacamole, blue corn chips, wasabi almonds and some sesame sticks with a grapefruit/orange margarita. We decided to take our walk to see the high windy tide come in and take some pictures. The sky looked very weird with a huge smoke plume from the Saddle fire billowing from the mountains above Crescent City and it poured out over the ocean. It made for strange, surreal pictures of the sunset. You could smell the smoke. The fire was caused by a lightening strike from the spectacular storm we had earlier in the week. Fred made a salad and cooked up some fresh rockfish for a late dinner. Fred started a nice cozy fire upstairs since it was chilly from the winds. The temperature was supposed to go down to 49 degrees. Tomorrow is our day off but we have to leave no later than 7:30 am before the tide gets too high and return by 5:30 pm. It was nice to do some relaxing knitting after finishing the blog and dinner.

So off to sleep we went, very tired after another productive day. Thinking about what we may do the next day, perhaps a cruise south through the mighty redwoods and a stop to take a hike amongst the massive giants who leave us in awe to see them reach so high for the sky and make us feel so small.

Surreal Sunset though the Smoke