April 6th

Sunny this morning, 9C
Short Matt bowled yesterday but today being good Friday will have to look for something else to do.
There has been quite an amazing amount of visitors to the site even though there hasn't been much posted here. So I guess I better follow up on what I said a few weeks ago.
In addition to what I put on here yesterday, I'll back up a couple of paragraphs for todays re-start.

He set the pails beside the door then strode around to the back and taking off his pack he carefully dumped the contents out on the wood chips that littered the ground. Two nice rock fish tumbled out first followed by the cleaned carcass of a large dungeoness crab, then the leaves and grass that they had been lying upon; moving to one side he shook the packsack, out tumbled four cork net floats, and a red canvas case with a white cross on the front.  He hadn’t taken the time other than to take a quick glimpse inside when he had found the case.

He was eager now to see what all would be in the case but he muttered aloud, “No first things first, lotsa time for that later.”

He reached around to his hip where his filleting knife now encased in more of the canvas,  was hanging on a leather thong. He quickly filleted the two fish then after skinning the fillets carried the remains around to the front and dug them into the ground at one end of the garden.

Going back to the lean-to he tossed the cork floats on the wood pile then picking up the  case he went back around and into the cabin.

Bob opened the door of the barrel stove and nodded when he found that the ashes were still hot, he poked them with a stick and saw that there were still some glowing embers.

He carefully built up the fire frowning as he did. “I can’t keep wasting wood while I’m not here, and the sun is almost no help now, I need matches.”

Once the fire was drawing well, he put on a pot of water and a frying pan, then turned picked up the case from where he had dropped it and carried it over to the table.

From the color and the cross on the front he was sure his find was a first aid kit although the weight was rather more  than he would have expected.  However, band-aids and small bandages would be handy for the many cuts and scratches his body was constantly enduring.

The zipper across the top opened easily and he immediately saw that he had found something more than just a first-aid kit!

Lying on top was a coil of eighth inch nylon rope, underneath was several tins which from their labels three of them contained canned stew, two more were salmon.

Feeling excited, Bob upended the kit, spilling the remaining contents on to the table top.

“Holy shit”, he cried aloud as he reached for two plastic cigarette lighters. He flicked one of them and on the third try he had a flame, the other lit after four flicks.

He sat back in the deck chair he had found months earlier and stared at the scattered contents of the bag. Food wise, there was the stew and the fish as well as three packages of Kraft Dinner, four tins of sardines and three large chocolate bars; there was a small canvas first-aid-kit, a string rapped bundle of four inch nails and two six inch spikes, a folded sheet of plastic and most importantly next to the lighters was a sheathed leatherman knife tool. Lastly there were three paper back books.

He could hardly believe his luck. He needed matches, he now had two lighters, the tinned food would be a welcome break from the tedium of shell fish, crabs and fresh fish and the leatherman with its assorted blades and tools would be invaluable.

He opened the small first-aid kit to find it was a small rendition of what he thought the large case was going to be. There were a dozen band-aids, a roll of gauze, a roll of tape, a bottle of iodine, a packet of ASA tablets and a small pair of blunt nosed scissors.

He gloated over everything for a few minutes then pushed it all to one side and got up to cook his evening meal. He was tempted for a moment to not cook the fish and instead open a tin of stew but resisted the temptation, knowing that the fish needed to be eaten while it was still fresh. He did relent later and when the crab was cooked, he used the same water to cook a box of Kraft Dinner. The cardboard boxes had survived quite well so the case probably hadn’t been in the water very long.

Later after his dinner, Bob lit a candle and tried to read one of the novels but the light was not adequate and after a few minutes he gave up and sitting back in his chair turned his thoughts to the coming winter. He was not concerned about the weather, he knew from experience that he would be seeing a lot of rain and there would be many days ahead when there would be a lot of wind.

The books and the food from what he now believed was a survival kit reminded him that the long evenings offered nothing in the way of entertainment and he wondered how long he could go on eating bounty from the ocean with nothing to supplement it.

There were at least four deer on the island but he was reluctant to try and trap or hunt them in any way. Over the course of the summer they had become used to him and often drank from the pond when he was present. ‘I wonder if I should have lit that signal fire when I saw one of those boats or one of the airplanes.’