Glacier Quiche

Sleeping on a boat can be heaven. The slow rocking motion seems to slow down your blood and focus your breathing, while the incessant rhythm of waves hitting the steel hull lulls your brain. It is loud enough to occupy your mind, pushing out all unwanted minutia, but soft and even enough to become part of the night.

And so in Fingers Bay we all slept, late late late, oblivious to the eagles' shrieking overhead like demented fishwives. When I woke, the first mate had taken over breakfast duty, creating a quiche with such fluffy insides and crispy outsides I had to share the recipe.

Crustless Quiche

5 eggs
1/8 cup melted butter
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 chopped jalapeno (optional but recommended)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a greased pie plate and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Fortified for what must be one of the most unique and beautiful sights in all the world we motored up Reid Inlet to the glacier, which hovered over the bay in the sunlight. It was so immense a trawler next to it looked like an ant on a watermelon. (Way down in the lower right corner...)

We shed layers and bask in the sun, as if we are the glacier's court, though its dirty, melting exterior and lack of icebergs in the water concern us, as King Henry's gout must have troubled his subjects. Is it something that we do to our world that causes these weary glaciers to recede? Can we stop it? In this vast landscape, one feels so unimportant, and yet so potent, at the same time. It is why we travel, to take us out of our lives and illuminate our essence. To remind us we are not our trappings, which are, for the most part, small and unremarkable. It is for our families, and our environment, our world, that we endeavor; those alone will endure.