July 31

The weather started out crappy, turned nice, and then returned to its former doom and gloom by the evening. In the morning Kristy and I continued to clean Halibut hole. I finished scrubbing windows while Kristy started cleaning the kitchen area. This project is taking a lot longer than expected, but the cabin also dirtier than I expected. 

After a late lunch Kristy, Ginger, and I took a skiff ride out to a different bay to go kayaking. We visited with Marias, another homesteader. He had a small and cozy cabin and two adorable dogs. He let us park the skiff on his beach while we perused in our kayaks. 
 

Kayaking in the bay

First, we went farther into the bay and discovered that the whole bay was a nursery for baby flounders! They were so cool to watch zipping around under our yaks. Flounders have a diamond-shaped body with speckles on the top and a fin around the bottom of their body with a stripe pattern on it. 

After heading into the bay, it was now time to head out. However, Kristy and I didn’t realize how strong a high tide is, and the whole way back we were fighting against the current. Finally, we made it out of the bay and started our yak journey to this cool rock formation that you can paddle through between low and high tides. The fog that just came in created a stout breeze that we were going against for the whole ride. Despite this, the rock formation was awesome and we enjoyed paddling around and watching the puffins and sea otters. 

After a quick paddle back to the skiff we headed for home because the weather was turning for the worse. The rest of the night was relaxing. Kristy helped Ginger heat up leftovers and cook up our sulfur mushrooms, aka chicken of the woods. We did have a surprise visit from the neighbors yesterday just as we were about to start dinner. Stan then invited them over for a banya and dinner. I am definitely not complaining about that one! We ended the night with a movie and then headed to bed.