Spring has Arrived

March 25th (Wednesday)

Today was another beautiful day, and we spent the day enjoying the sunshine.  Over the last week of lovely weather we have noticed a new type of duck has arrived in the area.  They are quite shy, so it is hard to get close to them when we are out in Kiki, but while we were enjoying the sunshine in our cockpit a male and female pair came into the marina.  They were out on the water, in between the two docks, bathing and preening themselves on the glassy calm water.  I got a few pictures of them, and we were able to identify them as Barrow’s Goldeneye ducks.  

We watched as they stretched and flapped and preened their feathers, and every now and then one of them would dip its bill into the water and raise its head up towards the sky. This motion was then repeated by the other, and it seemed to be some type of mating ritual. They were very pretty, especially the male, but unfortunately most of my pictures had too much glare from the direct sun and water reflection.  

While enjoying our outdoor cockpit time we saw a pair of kingfishers.  Just a couple of days ago we saw kingfishers here for the first time.  I guess they are probably back for the summer.  We also saw our first bumblebee.  He was large, round, and fluffy, and he came flying into our cockpit, did a full tour and then left.  Despite what the weather forecast suggests, spring must indeed be here.  

After making up an extensive shopping list, which included all of the heavy items like flour and rice, which we had not been ordering from Save On Foods because of the price per pound for freight on the barge, I called the Bella Coola Co-op. I talked with a very helpful and friendly lady who explained to me how it all worked.  

In the future, if we place our order before their order days of Saturdays and Tuesdays, they will do their best to accommodate our order.  The staff would then pick our order on Friday, which is also the day that they get their stock order, and then hopefully we would get everything that we wanted. After talking with her I emailed her our full order, and headed back home.  I will call her back around 11:30 on Friday to give her a credit card number, and to discuss any items that they did not have.

In the afternoon we planed out in Kiki to check our crab trap. We had two lovely 8” male Dungeness, which worked out perfectly as we had forgotten to take something out of the freezer for dinner. Yay crab supper.  

When we pulled up our crab trap we had other crabs as well, including one female that had gotten herself tangled on the top of the trap, and in so doing she had ripped a large hole in the top. We packed up our trap and brought it home, and I sat in the sunshine on the dock with our netting needles trying to figure out how best to repair it.   

Although we had a good video on how to make a net (the one I followed for making my netting projects last year), it was quite different repairing an existing net. After refreshing my memory as to how to tie the correct knot, I tried to figure out how best to repair a hole.  Finally I figured it out, and our crab trap is now as good as new.  

While I was at it I repaired several small holes in the trap where just one connection had been broken. Over time we had done small repairs, but they were always done in a rush with a clove hitch and simple string.  I re-did most of these repairs with the proper knot and proper twine.  It was a fun project to work on in the sunshine, and even more rewarding when I figured it out.