Weather Day

We're tough and all, but there comes a limit. No one here is in that high-tolerance 15-45 age bracket, after all.

Today in Mitrofania Bay, Alaska Peninsula, The Great Land, Planet Earth, it rained. Sideways. It blew southeast, that crappiest direction of all in the Gulf of Alaska. When it was tired doing anything else, it misted and fogged.

The low tide was in the afternoon today, so we had plenty of opportunity to sit inside next to the diesel heater and contemplate the damp and chilly things that were going on on the other side of the perspex portlights before we could go out and sample.

Cooler heads prevailed, and I am glad they did. We decided to put off the sampling until tomorrow, which by the simple law of averages stands to be less harrowing than today.

Elias fished from deck, brave lad. The rest of us ventured out not at all. Eric executed an admirable set of Lord of the Rings drawings from memories that must go back to the last time we read the trilogy, at least two years ago. Alisa read long chapters from the series that she and the boys are enjoying so much. Something about mice with swords. And I got the simple joy of simply working on a couple of science papers all the day long.

It's a funny sort of delight, a weather day. By the end of it you inevitably feel a little pasty and overdone. But what a straightforward delight, this time spent with just the four of us, all day long, sharing the saloon of the Mothership, our cozy floating home. I stepped outside the moment and marveled - look! Elias at 11, and Eric at 8! How sweet they were, how uncomplicated and delightful! I felt myself stomping on time's arrow and savoring this simple day in their lives, and my life that becomes more and more about them, just as their life will become less and less about me.
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This post was sent via our high-frequency radio as we're far from internet range. Pictures to follow when we reach internet again. We can't respond to comments for now, though we do see them all!

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