always at sea level: Spring

Fishing boats, squalls of snow mixed with hail and sunshine on the back deck.......what do these 3 things signify? Spring is on it's way!

Today, March 20^th is the first day of spring and we awoke to the pinging of hail on our bedroom window and the lightest dusting of snow on the ground. We had been expecting this, almost waiting for it, so we weren't fazed in the least that our first day of spring wouldn't find us swapping out our rubber boots for plastic flip flops or tossing aside the fleece jacket in favour of something more skin exposing. I didn't whine or complain, which I may have done a couple of years ago, now just accepting that this is the way that spring arrives at the Outpost.

It was never truer than today the saying that goes, “ just wait 5 minutes and the weather will change.”

This complete reversal of wind, sky and water played out the entire day.

There's always a moment of excitement when out of the blue a vessel suddenly appears in the bay. I race for my camera and head out onto the deck while Mike heads to the kitchen to turn on the radio.

Permission granted to tie up for the night we grab coats and boots after making a quick survey of each other as to hair and attire (some days I just don't make it out of the pj's) than rush down to do a meet and greet.

The crew of the 'Progressor' all came out to say hi and chat for abit before going in search of kelp. They had been over in the next bay for several days setting up the pens that hold the kelp lines and herring. We learned all about this delicacy of herring roe on kelp last year from the crew on 'Silver Dawn'. The job of the 'Progressor' is to catch the herring, up to 80,000 lbs per pen and they had some time to kill waiting on the vessel that would be responsible for the collecting of the kelp. Come morning they were gone but I'm sure we'll see them again.

As you may have noticed and likely wondered about, the docks are a bit wokey. Tiny pinholes are the culprit and over the course of the season the ballast has slowly filled with water partially sinking our docks. Everything will be on an even keel come time to open for the season but for now to get to the heli pad one must take the tinney. No big deal and quite doable except for and isn't there always an “except for”, the fact that half the time during which the tide is low the boat is grounded. We have no need to go out onto the heli pad anyways, or so we thought.

It was early evening last Sunday – I was surfing the net from the comfort of my favourite wingback chair and Mike was 'resting his eyes' while stretched out on the couch when I glanced up and there in front of the lodge were 3 boats! You know the drill....I grabbed my camera and Mike headed for the radio to see if he could hail them.

A short conversation over the radio we learned that they were out diving for sea urchins ( brrrrr.....was my first reaction) and they would likely be around for a couple of days. Normally we would be hightailing it down the dock to introduce ourselves but this time the tide was not in our favour so we had to be satisfied with a “have a good night and hopefully we'll be able to meet tomorrow.”

Catching the tail end of a conversation between boats very early the next morning they seemed to have experienced a rolly night tied up to the heli pad.

We haven't seen them again but you never know, they might show up. I hope so because I certainly would like to get some pictures of their diving efforts.

One more boat for the week. This one looks familiar from previous years yet we've never had any contact with him or even knew what he was out trolling for....until today.

With the knowledge that there were boats in the area we have been leaving our radio on and it's pretty strange to be in the kitchen and suddenly hear voices. Tonight I heard the seiner that we have seen each year is out fishing for herring to put into the pens.

Now for the sun. Bit by bit each day the sun is a little higher in the sky and it's beginning to peak over the tree tops making it's way into the lodge.