Sea Otters, Sea Breezes and the Summer Solstice

Tonight, the night of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and I found myself alone on the Airplane dock in the small boat harbor from midnight till 1:20am. The ocean, which in my opinion is normally calm, provided me this evening with slow, gentle rolling waves that came and swayed the dock. Two sea otters decided I was an oddly amusing toy and would poke there heads out at me every once and awhile and breath out air fast through these nose. I found if I imitated this sound they would lift there little heads a little higher out of the water to peer at me, then duck under the dock and within seconds I would hear air whoosing out of there noses right below me. I must have checked out ok to them because eventually the more I "talked" to them the braver they got and they even began using there small curious feet to pull themselves up so that there little eyes could peek at me over the edge of the dock. After awhile of getting used to each other they even got so bold as to waddle there little bodies up the ramp that lead directly from the ocean to the dock. They left me after twenty minutes of playing for I'm sure a much more amusing toy.

I spent the next hour standing or sitting near the edge of the dock. The waves gently swayed, the sun never truly set and I sat there over looking the town of Haines with the towering snow caped mountains in the background. As odd as it may sound, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was New Years Eve. I don't know why, maybe it's because it was the summer solstice and that means the end of our long summer days and a slow turning back of time so that soon our days will consist of only 4 to 5 hours of sunlight. Or maybe it was because out there on that quite dock with a gentle sea breeze blowing, the dock swaying and sea otters playing I was able to truly think about my life right now, where it is heading and what I plan to do with it. It was peacful time of reflecting and I left there with a sense of knowing myself better.

Standing on that dock, my hair blowing in the breeze, my lungs breathing in the sea air and my eyes beholding the town I now call home I found myself saying "This, this moment, this place, these people, these times are the reasons I live and love Alaska. The reason I can not live happily any place else. This is as good as it gets and I am beyond blessed to be here right now."