Grorter Gristers

We stayed for two nights on a tiny island off the southern coast of Alaska. We slept in a houseboat for the first night (the constant rocking motion was somewhat unnerving), and in a yurt the second night. During our second day on the island, we went sea kayaking. We paddled into a little cove that houses a slender water fall that plummets into a small pool, which lets out to the ocean via a short, cascading stream. When we got there, there were thousands of salmon spawning, struggling up the stream by the hundreds, their fins and tails flopping out of the shallow water. They congregated in the pool where they spawned, then waited until they turned gray, their skin started pealing off, and they floated feebly back downstream to die gasping. It was a little eerie. But the scenery is beautiful.