Today was all about doing exactly nothing.
After leisurely reading yesterday’s morning paper over coffee and toast, ( we always read the paper a day behind, the news is always the same and there is no rush to get the paper)
we chatted with fellow RVers at the campsite, and then made our way down to the beach, where the tide was out, way out, as in negative 3.8 ( whatever that means).
There were hundreds of people clamming.
This stretch of beach is famous for its razor shell clams, see daily report # 42, and the tricky little suckers are really hard to get out. First you have to spot the tiniest of depressions in the sand, then using this T shaped tubular thing, the clam gun, you push and twist, and pull, and usually get a tube full of sand first time. Eventually a clam is caught, by which time your back is killing you, and the daily limit is 60, so you get to do this another 59 times, if you want.
Then, after having spent three hours, sometimes on your hands and knees, and in big scooped out holes in the sand, covered in mud and fish smelly sand, you get to go and clean them, which can take another four hours, coz they are really fiddley.
So, like all visiting celebrities would do, I caught the grand total of one clam, purely for the photo opportunity, and left the rest in the beach for the real enthusiasts.
Afterwards we had an excellent lunch and some good natured banter with our fellow campers at the beachfront café, known locally as The Beachfront Café, and we then went for a pleasant drive in the countryside, off the beaten track, looking for bears.
We didn’t find any, so we went to church.
There is a tiny Russian Orthodox Church perched on a hill above the little village of
Ninilchik, with some fascinating gravesites. The grass is mowed between the graves, but each site has a tiny white picket fence around, so the weeds and flowers grow wild on the grave itself.
Marlipops added to her collection of local wild flower photographs, and while we were wandering around the church, a cloud literally dropped on us in a matter of minutes, and we went from a magnificent view across Cooke Inlet and the distant mountains, to a fog bank in seconds.
As you drive around some of the back roads, and go into the little “scenic view” pull offs around here, you can discover some unspoilt areas, full of lush vegetation, streams and creeks. One of the major attractions for us here is that there are no snakes to step on, so we can go crashing through the undergrowth without fear of rattlers or coral snakes. Of course, there is always the possibility of a grizzly bear or a mountain lion or a wolf, but at least they are not venomous!
We just chilled for the evening, around the campfire, the highlight of which was six grown men trying to get the top off a cocktail shaker, and finally succeeded using a hammer and screwdriver.
We stayed up until 11pm and watched an absolutely stunning sunset across the Inlet, over Mount Redoubt. For once the sky was clear, and the colors were spectacular.
There were over forty fishing boats of various sizes in view, and when I woke at around 4.30 am, the boats were still there, and I watched the sun rise, at about 90 degrees from where it went down, and all the mountains were cloud free, with the snow sparkling in the dawn sun.
Wildlife watch today was bald eagles (yawn, yawn) and clams.
