My 2009 berry picking tale

Most of my berry picking adventures deal with animals, specifically bears but nature trumped the animals this year. I was able to join my parents, brother Herman and sister Olga on a camping trip across Napakiak this year. First picture a 16 foot lund boat filled beyond capacity with camping and picking gear. To lighten the load we used their dome tent but still the poor 40 HP motor was pushed to the limit with all of us and a trip that would normally take about an hour took three and a half. We landed to the sound of cranes nearby. We put up the tent and as my mom was cooking, my sister and I took a short walk to see what we could find. The wind at the time was not bad...but by evening, wholly smokes was it really blowing! We took a walk and picked berries until about midnight and tried to settle down below the loud crackly sound of the tent's dome flap whipping in the wind. (this would be so much more exciting if I could add the sound here) By 4:30 AM we noticed that the wind was doing more damage to the tent's poles. One had snapped and tore the top. I heard later that the winds were gusting to 40MPH. We made a wind breaker and were able to sleep after about 30 minutes of tying off the broken section of the poles. The wind had not died down all the next day, which was maybe a good thing: No bugs. We got about 17 gallons altogether in two days, I got to bring home 6 gallons.