Again I say goodbye to a sad Aki and head to the harbor for another try for King Salmon. Just one fish will feed us for awhile. Like our last attempt on Saturday there is rain and a bay full of herring. These beautiful silver fish draw a gang of sea lions and one very forward humpback whale. The sea lions alone almost eliminate any chance we have of caching a king. If we did hook one, a sea lion would probably bite it in half before we could boat it. I still enjoy watching them find so much fun in chasing their lunch. The gulls hang about them when they surface with a herring in mouth. One cheeky bird tried to pull a fish from the sea lion’s mouth. 

We trolled for seven hours without receiving a single bite. From the rolling boat deck I grew even more frustrated trying to photograph the whales and birds and sea lions. By the time the camera focused, they would be gone. Sometimes the sea lions would surface right next to the boat, then swim away underwater. The whale pulled the opposite trick. A young whale, it headed right at our boat, giving me a start when it appeared in my view finder.  (It is not as close as it seems as I using a zoom lens). 

Leaving Aki with a promise of an afternoon adventure, I’m out the door with everything needed to catch a king salmon except luck.  A low marine layer of clouds block out the mountain tops but there is no rain. It waits for us at the harbor.

For a few weeks in early spring large king salmon, some over 30 pounds, fatten themselves on herring where we fish. They don’t care about the rain or the cold air temperature. We try to ignore these things as well.

Distracted by the eagle ballet I stop caring about the rain and cold.  While I watch the birds, the captain calls out in alarm.  A humpback whale has just surfaced near the boat. Attracted by the concentration of bait fish, the whale spends the next hour hoovering up herring along the cove’s inner shore.  We don’t get in its way but other boats have to take evasive action to keep out of the whale’s path. 

This time of year it takes 144 hours of fishing to catch a king salmon. We put in our first four and call it quits. Driving home in the heavy rain we pass a large black bear grazing on road side vegetation.  A driving rain can give any fur bearing a pathetic bearing, this bear included. It doesn’t keep him from the task at hand.

For Aki this canoe ride is as boring as one in the car. She doesn’t mind the weather — light rain falling from gum metal clouds.  It’s the lack of smells. On this large salt water lake our bee line course keeps us far away from shore with its promise of adventure. She moves nervously from side to side of the canoe straining to hear some promising sound, trying to catch an enticing scent.

If she looked down she would see grey bodied sole flattened into the sandy bottom. One bursts away when my paddle comes too close. We could easily catch a dinners worth.

Eventually Aki settles into the arms of the forward paddler, staying there until we reach the great sand bar that protects the lake, really a cove, from ocean swells. Normally a dog landing here could hope for a throwing stick to chase or some interesting flotsam to smell.  But a recent large tide sterilized the bar by sweeping it clean of objects useful to a dog.

After tea and sandwiches I walk to end of the bar. Aki stays with the other adult in her life until I cross a flooded section of the bar. Then she races, ears flapping, down the sand, across the wet break and to my feet. Satisfied that I am fine, she retraces her course to the canoe. 

As I return to the canoe a small barge, loaded down by a yellow school bus passes by, its outboard engines straining against the out going tide. Such things are common in this island region and I only question why a school bus is on the move on Sunday, when students have a day off.

Perhaps frustrated by the ride Aki misbehaves after we return to our starting point and charges after a raven, making it drop a crab shell it was carrying in its talons. She has never done such a thing before, the little brat. I hope the ravens forgive her and us.

After Oahu, with its nature painted with a garish palette, this simple forest trail seems too green and grey. In this time before the salmon and berries, we can only find peace and the promise of summer. Even though the devil’s club leaf buds are barely swelling the fern shoots now reach a foot above the ground. Their tips are still rolled into the fiddle head shape that gives them their name. A tasty treat when harvested early and then sauteed in butter, the tips will soon relax and allow the fern leaves to flatten out and capture the sun.

We find a few magenta salmon berry blossoms near the trailhead but for a trail mile its all green and brown. Only the nest building song of the forest birds provides any counterpoint to the forest’s earth tones. That changes where we reach the first meadow, which hosts a myriad of yellow skunk cabbage blooms. Small yellow violets and marsh flowers grow near the forest edges.  Southeast Alaska summer always starts with a show of yellow flowers but on this trip we also find  some blue lupine flower stalks and even a small island of magenta shooting stars. We also find four Canada geese feeding on the river flats. They stir at our approach but stroll, rather than fly away.  Maybe they know that Aki is geese shy for they hold their ground while another group of geese across the river break to flight at the appearance of a black labrador. 

We walk for the most part under grey skies and flat light that fools the sensors on my camera. I want to capture all the shades of grey in the clouds, the whites on the mountains, and the strong yellow of the new cottonwood leaves that have yet to turn their summer green.  No setting works until  maverick shaft of light strikes a mixed spruce and cottonwood forest beneath the mountains.  

The lush jungle of the Manoa valley lies within a 45 minute drive of the semi-dessert region where we stay on Oahu. Giant red blossoms, shaped like matching cruets, lay on the trailside after being chopped down like weeds. Perhaps they are but it pains to see them so destroyed.

Moving up the trail we meet hikers returning to their cars, each smiling, each wishing us a good day in the accent of non-native English speakers. They look as if they have seen the face of God and lived. We are standing near massive banyan trees and white barked giants covered with climbing vines.

Later the trail enters a bamboo forest and becomes greasy with mud. I begin to resent the sound of talking in English and other languages about everything except the exotic beauty slapping them in the face. In hope to hear only bird song and the hollow clunks and squeaks of wind in a thick bamboo forest I stop to let everyone pass.  The Chinese laughing thrush awards me a tune that blends with the song of rubbing bamboo.

It’s been sunny all day but it begins to rain when we reach the car. In the American south they would look up and ask whether the devil was beating his wife — rain falling through the sunshine. A rainbow forms an arch above the verdant valley, reminding me of  the time my 3 year old daughter and I watched a rainbow form above the temperate rain forest of Alaska. She asked me what made those crayon colors in the sky. I told her about Noah’s flood and how God had sent the rainbow to seal his promise never again to flood all the earth. She didn’t seem convinced so I took a page from the great Thlingt story tellers of Ketchikan and said, :It is true –look there’s the rainbow.”