Land of the midnight sun

I watched the moon rise over China Poot Bay a few minutes before midnight last week. The sun had only set an hour before, so it was still bright in the west. When the moon rose and added to the light, the world took on a soft glow.

Already, a month before summer solstice, there are nearly twenty hours of visible light every day. The stars make only a brief appearance each night. Even then, they don’t glow against the black background of a dark sky; they peak through the twilight of the early hours of dawn.

Long days in late spring invigorate nearly all forms of life in Alaska. The silence of winter has faded and been replaced by a symphony of a world recently woken. As the symphony reaches its crescendo, the world will continue to increase in color, light, and sound.  

 

Cliffs and connections

The cliffs of China Poot Bay are like a fine work of art. As you stare at their twists, folds, and subtle colors, you can find patterns and shapes in the chaos of the rock. The cliffs here tell a story.

One story they tell is of billions of plankton and their journey from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the coast of Alaska. The rock the cliffs are made of is radiolarian chert. Radiolarians are protozoans that can still be found floating in our oceans today. During a population boom millions of years ago the ancestors of today’s radiolarians lived, died, sank to the bottom of the ocean, and became sedimentary rock. On the slowly sliding Pacific plate, the rock that they became made its way north where it was scrapped onto the North American plate and pushed onto the Kenai Peninsula.

It’s incredible how much of the world you can find here. Rock from the middle of the Pacific Ocean forms the cliffs in China Poot Bay. Dust from storms in the Gobi Desert sometimes makes its way here. This time of year, shorebirds from thousands of miles away are beginning to land on the beaches of Kachemak Bay. The salmon will soon make their way back from the ocean to the streams they spawned in. Despite Alaska’s remote location, much of this place is defined by its connections to the world. 

Exploring the intertidal

Every two weeks during new and full moons, the tide flows out of China Poot Bay far enough to reveal the lower intertidal zone. This area of the beach is not often exposed and is full of incredible creatures. Nudibranchs, like the one above, glide along and eat anemones and sponges. Hermit crabs, like the one below, battle for new shells and search for food. Octopus can be seen tucked into their dens waiting for the water to return.

This week at the lodge, we hosted a group of fourth graders from Homer studying marine biology and tidal ecology. Even those who live in Homer rarely get the chance to explore the intertidal world on this side of Kachemak Bay.

The past few days have been a reminder to me to make an effort to explore the beauty of the places we live. Every environment has unique treasures. My hope is that when people leave China Poot Bay, they go home more connected to the world around them and more aware of the mysteries that are waiting under every rock; that exploring this place will lead to more adventure in daily life.