Ah, finally, a little heat and relaxation. 

Some of us trying to get dried off from the endless amount of rain. 

Edy decided on the Log cabin approach.I think its her favroite. 

There he is, whacking up some good kindling. 

The rain came down pretty hard that night, and dry firewood was pretty scarce. But we were able to scrounge up some good wood. Thank goodness Rob insisted on bringing a big o'l ax. 

This is the back side of our camp site, next to our kitchen and rain shelter. Its a small bay that is the opening to a river. During low tide you could practically walk across the whole thing if you boots didn't sink so deep in the mud. 

This is the front of our campsite where Roland dropped us off by float plane. You can see one of our tents in the far right corner. 

And here we are securing the perimeter with our trusty bear fence. Yup, that's it... the wimpy looking orange wire surrounding the tents. Apparently, the bears hate the feeling of electricity despite their urges to feed. And if that didn't work we still had our bear spray and seal bombs. 

Next we set up the tents. They were in a totally different area than the kitchen to avoid bear confusion as to what to eat if he so desires. 

And here's the family enjoying our little shelter. Rob set up a great kitchen and had breakfast with coffee made before most of us got up in the morning. 

That's Rob hoisting up our cooler to keep it away from bears. 

This is what the shelter Rob and I built look like. It was well used since the rain hadn't let up until a good day and a half into the trip. 

We finally got the go ahead to fly out. We decided to got to the farthest Island North in Kodiak called Shuyak. It has a lot more trees, better to build a rain proof fort in, and good Silver salmon fishing.

 

Lots of seaweed. 

As you can see the weather has pretty low visibility, not good for flying, but okay for a short hike around spruce cape on Kodiak.

Sadly, we were postponed from our trip because of weather. And worse yet, we got the news that it was probably not a very good idea to float the Karluk river at all since the rain was going to be hard and heavy for the next few days. Roland, our pilot, recommened that we find a place where we could set up camp and make a nice shelter from the rain that could stay put. So we went for a walk around Kodiak before deciding where to set off for the next day. 

 

After all of that packing a good break is in order. 

Da Bear box. Huge and heavyduty. 

We had to put everything in dry bags since there'd be a high likelyhood of things getting soaked in the raft. 

These are seal bombs used by fisherman to scare away seals when they try to pick off fish from their net. Mark suggested carrying two of these in your pocket with a lighter just in case some bears are looking a bit too interested. They are about the size of your index finger (way bigger than an M80.) 

Hip and Chest waiters are the best for this kind of rafting/ fishing adventure. 

 

All week long, and especially since Rob arrived, we've been packing like crazy to get things ready for our 4 day river rafting trip down the Karluk river. Tents, hip and chest waiters, bear spray, bear fence, bear box, food, sleeping bags, rain gear, rain shelter, stoves, therma rests, Dry bags, fishing gear. . . . a ton of equipment mostly supplied by friends. Anyway, collecting all the equipment has been an adventure on its own.