August 27, 2000. This is a truly amazing place. Twice a day, the moon tries to pull the entire Pacific ocean up a long fiord-like passage and through a rock-choked narrows into a wide shallow lagoon, and twice a day much of the water in the lagoon drains back out. The result is a steep treacherous rapids that change direction twice a day. Boats navigating into the cabin have a short window of time each day for entering and leaving. And salmon and trout gather here as if it’s a fish magnet.

Last evening, as we entered the lagoon, the clouds broke and the rain stopped. Columns of mist rose from the flanks of the surrounding mountains like plumes of smoke from signal fires. And we saw a rainbow...no, not a fish, but of the more elusive variety.

We fished the rapids twice today, once in early morning and once at midday. Both times we caught mostly the cutties with a few silvers mixed in. The local trout are coastal cutthroat (Oncorhynchus clarki clarki), a gorgeous fish that’s easily mistaken for a rainbow trout but for the bright reddish or orange slash mark found on the throat.

I forgot to bring a pencil or pen. My sketches today where done with a piece of charcoal pulled from the fire pit and whittled into a usable shape.