Aug 15th

Happy Birthday Happy - she turns 30 today and is sharing her special day with all of us. So as my tradition goes, she got to pick the menu for tonight. After much deliberation all she requested was chicken, either a pot pie or parmesan, lots of vege's and maybe potatoes or stuffing. Final menu is parmesan chicken, I know I just made it but that was on the 4 hour delay dinner so I'm thinking this time will be better. Bacon wrapped asparagus, stuffing and corn. For dessert, we are having white cupcakes with buttercream frosting, again, her request. She told me her mom was making a chicken pot pie in her honor and I didn't want to compete with her memory of mom's homemade dinner. Better to let that one alone. They are all still out in the field, it's 5 pm, dinner will probably be close to 7. We have to move to another creek tonight but it's not far so shouldn't be too bad. Our trip last night was a rocky one. We are on the west side of Baranof island, the ocean side and we felt it last night. That was the very closest I came to tossing my cookies. Actually sat up in the wheelhouse with the outside door open until 12:30 or 1 am. Brad was guiding us through the narrows by instrument only and it was scary. Obviously, he knew what he was doing but I was still nervous. All I could see were large, dark land masses sticking up out of the water and we were headed directly for them. I'm sure he tired of me saying, we seem to be heading straight for the beach, you see that island up there?, is that an island right ahead?, are you sure you know where you're going?. After awhile, I just shut up and kept my head out the door to feel the cool (cold) breeze. We left Sitka around 6 last night in order to beat the huge storm that is headed here on Tuesday. There are two streams to do here and then we can go south and inland, hopefully avoiding the storm. Last night's waves were 7-8 feet, the prediction on the Tuesday storm is 8-12 ft waves. Not interested in going through those. The crew just returned from the stream and had a great day. They got over 300 samples of otolith bone from chum salmon, they are pumped. Now they need to finish their computer work and we will travel to the next stream. Chicken is still cooking which works out just fine. Will eat along the way I imagine.