Sunday, March 17, 2013

Visitors

We had an odd weekend this weekend. When we arrived at the lake Friday it was 73° with more than a hint of Spring in the air. By 6 the next morning it was dropping like a rock, and the rest of the weekend was spent in alternating rain / sleet / snow and freezing winds. You just have to love this part of the country.

In spite of the fickle winter, the King Pelicans returned this week, true harbingers of Spring. For the first time I can remember, they actually entered the marina behind the breakwater and were gliding down our fairway.




We spent a lazy day in the rain yesterday holed up in the "Man Cave", a garage behind the marina office into which has recently been installed a pool table, fortuitously near a cast iron wood stove. Tim and I used to play pool a couple times a week in 2007 B.B (before boat) and although we were never very good at it we really enjoyed ourselves. It was a nice quiet day of 9-Ball games in a warm place while not much boat work got done. I did manage to finish filling all the parts boxes that I bought from Harbor Freight, so the tool crib project will be able to commence as soon as the bulkhead table project is finished. Toward the end of the day today I was standing in the galley drinking an IBC root beer (yum) and looking out the port when I noticed a bird on the unstepped mast two boats down. It turned out it was a Belted Kingfisher, a bird I have only seen one other time in my life. It was indeed a great weekend for reminding me that things like pelicans and Kingfishers are one of the reasons we're doing this.




2 comments:

Robert Salnick said...

I envy you the pelicans, but we have kingfishers galore out here.

(I would swear that I saw pelicans when we first came to Seattle, back in 1976, but Jane says I'm nuts. She's probably right.)

bob
s/v Eolian
Seattle

Deb said...

Bob,

The California brown pelicans do indeed migrate as far north as Seattle. In fact, with global warming I've heard reports that a lot of the birds are not migrating south to CA and Mexico like they should.