Stars, Popcorn, and Too Many Bears!

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
-  John Masefield

Coordinates: 58°06.351 135°26.818

I’d forgotten what the stars looked like. Until tonight.

In some ways, it’s a metaphor for the whole experience; Alaska is about the unexpected problems—and the unforeseen delights.

Only in Alaska would we all crowd into the cockpit, gazing through the sunroof and exclaiming over five tiny yet brilliant pinpricks of light shining in the dusky sky, a nearly-full moon like a floodlamp in comparison over the darkened western mountains. Five little feeble stars, but the first ones I’ve seen since we reached Alaskan shores. It was 1 AM, yet the sky to the west was periwinkle blue, outlining the islands and casting a glimmer over the ocean and the ships floating in the water like seabirds in a row.

Where can you go that you forget what the stars look like? Which makes we wonder, like L.M. Montgomery, “If we only saw the stars every thousand years, what a marvel we would think them!”

Sometimes its hard to remember the things we’ve done are once in a lifetime, because the days up here have begun to blur together. Its easier now for me to understand how people on a ship could forget the week or the month, or miss Christmas or Easter. Because a lot of the things that usually matter don’t, and the things that usually don’t matter, do. Like stars.

And like stars, certain instances, encounters, and experiences shine out of the dusk and blur of the rest. We’ve been in Hoonah more than a week, and had our first voyage in the Star and in the Jurassic Park Jeep (My name for it—I’m hoping it catches on), yet it’s the moments along the way that shine. In no particular order, I’ll start to share a few of the stars so far.

First of all, there’s the Star, which when we arrived had aged a year and smelled of disesel, with rainbows of mold in the toilets but NOWHERE else. Those in Alaska or wet climates will cheer with
me that there was no mold, the silent destroyer of vacations, hopes and sometimes lives. Those in the dry, just know, not having mold on any of our stuff was considered a joyous blessing from heaven—quite literally.

The Star’s magic hasn’t dimmed with time, and her peace is ours again. The Captain swabbed her decks, the First Mate fired up her tiny propane stove, and life filled her hull once more, a flag flying on her stern again. The mast thrusts up through the salon beside the table and into the deck above, and when I wrapped my arms around the mast, it felt like embracing a friend, a shining moment in itself.

Shining moments quickly followed, and in no particular order, here are a few.

First off, two words: STOVETOP POPCORN. We’ve recently and joyfully discovered a secret, burnproof method which I MAY tell you at the bottom 😉. Mom tells me everyone burned it in the 70s, but this was my first encounter without a plug-in air popper and I am NEVER going back. Hearing it pop away in the pan, the flavor and taste of the olive oil is just—well, cosmic. Of course, I recently got treated and am over my allergy to popcorn, making this my first popcorn in about a decade, so I am admittedly biased.  

Then of course, in the sky of our vacation, shines the bears.

We thought we knew bears. I’ve been charged by one, huffed at, our pickup chased with us in the back. We thought we were pretty well introduced to bears, and 1 per square mile was a lot on Admiralty Island.

Our first explorations of Hoonah have proven there are many, many more bears in this world than I am entirely comfortable with. And this is their turf.

Nine. Nine hulking grizzly bears in two days. And we were only driving for about five hours combined. And that was in the wild, not the dump (not that we’re knocking the dump—hours of free
entertainment). We saw a huge boar munching away at the grass, a sow grouchily hogging the road with her year-old cub ahead of us—and refusing to budge for ten minutes while we crawled along behind on the Forest Service backroads I hinted about in earlier posts.

Because we did it. We climbed in our land-ship, the Jurassic Park Jeep, and we started to explore the backwoods roads and views of Chichagof Island. The bears were part of what we’ve discovered but the views?

Spectacular.

Only this log is long, and it is, after all, 2 AM. So I’m gonna shell out one more hard-earned bit of advice from the high seas:

Sailing Tip #5 Wait. Wait for the tides to change, the wind to pick up, the day to dawn. Wait.

Therefore, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my own advice, and wait to tell the rest.

Until tomorrow, love to you all, and know we’re with you when you look up at the stars. Maybe its been too long for us all.

Skipper Krystal

P.S. The key to burn-free, perfect popcorn I found on Google and will totally give credit in the blog as soon as I have reliable service again—but here’s what you do. Cover the bottom of your saucepan in olive oil and drop three or four kernels in. These are your “test” kernels. Once two of the three pop, take the pan off the stove, pour in 1/3 cup of kernels and cover your pan. Count to 30 out loud (this gives the kernels time to all get to the same hot temperature while off the heat). Then put the pan back on the heat and wait for delicious fluffy goodness to come.

Mom assures me doing this last step without a lid is quite excitingly disastrous (and she’s right), but I still want to try it someday—just to have the experience.

I hope I’m not the only one.