We finally went Halibut Fishing

Ever since I have arrived in Alaska, I have been wanting to go fishing. I don't know why I had such a strong desire to go, being that I have never really fished before and have never had a desire to while in Spokane. But the timing has just never worked out. I was starting to lose hope that I would be able to check fishing off my list of things to do while in Alaska. But then Ian happened.

You see, when we first opened the restaurant, the dining room managers (Micky and Brian) decide that they wanted to have a sales contest. Micky tracked the sales of all the servers for six weeks. At the end of those six weeks whoever had the highest would receive a prize. Well, Ian won. So his prize was a day of fishing followed by a stay at a rustic cabin on Pleasant Island (about a 45 minute boat ride from the lodge), (another side note: it is called Pleasant Island because there are no bears on the island, only deer).

The day finally came and we were off. We took Micky, she said that the only stipulation of the prize was that she got to come, Jason, another of the servers and Arron, the head maintenance guy for the lodge, and owner of the boat, the Mary Jane.

The water was pretty choppy and we finally decided on a spot called Gustavus Point. I was the first to drop a line. I was very optimistic. I told Grandpa Fred that I was gonna catch one for him, since it was his birthday and I was going to come through. 

After about 20 minutes of nothing we reeled up my line to make sure that I still had bait because I thought that I had felt a bite and it was. It did have a few nibble marks on it though. Ian had checked it for me and asked if I wanted to continue but I told him that he could have a turn. He didn't have the line in the water for more that 30 seconds and he had a bit. This is where the story gets good.

Whatever was on the other line was putting up a good fight. Sometimes it would really fight him but other times, Erin thought that it probably was maybe 30 pounds. Ian kept at it for about 20 minutes. Now, at the same time this was happening Jason had a line of his own in the water. He was doing his best to keep it away from Ian's line but Ian's fish was all over the place. In a 19 foot boat there isn't much room to "keep away". So it was inevitable. The fish had wrapped Ian's line around Jason's line. So Jason does get credit for helping Ian the last few minutes. Finally we caught a glimpse of it. It was huge. When we finally got it up to the side of the boat, Arron speared it and knock it out. After it was on the boat, Arron measured it and it was 64 inches. We never measured it but Arron had a book that told us for the length it was right around 134 pounds. WAY TO GO IAN! After all that excitement we didn't get anymore bits so we decide to head to a different spot.

On our way to the next fishing spot, we soon discovered that we were being followed by the Nation Forest Service or NPS. So we stopped because they had their lights flashing. Turns out that we were too close to shore. Since were were still in Bartlett Cove (where the lodge is located) we are in what is deemed "whale waters" so there are a lot of restrictions. You can only go so fast and you must stay a mile from the shoreline. Since the water was so rough Arron had been a little closer than he should have. But since it was so rough and the NPS knew Aaron so well (he is a year round resident of Gustavus) they let us go with a warning. 

After we hit our spot we put the lines back into the water. Turned out that Ian had the magic touch and had a few more bits but only was able to hook one more fish. He let me reel it in. It was nowhere near as big as the first. It was a 20 pounds. Jason also caught a fish but we made him throw it back because it was a little one. Non the less, he was very proud of it. What was the most beautiful part of  the trip was sitting there at our second spot was all the sea life that was around us. There were a bunch of harbor porpoise that surrounded the boat. We also saw a few sea otters, and even a humpback whale that came up for breath 25 yards from our boat.

We finally had to head back to the dock. After we go there we got to show off Ian's catch and Arron filleted  the fish.

Then it was off the Pleasant Island for our night in the cabin. But bad weather persisted and we had to turn around to come back. I was fine with that. I had an amazing day. I was on cloud nine. I had wanted to go halibut fishing the entire summer and I finally got to go. We decided that we would wash up and come down for dinner at the lodge. We passed by the lodge (it's on the way to employee lodging from the docks), and saw Brian, the assistant dinning room manager, and told him what had happened and that we'd be back for dinner. So we shower and head back down, and as we came into the lodge we were greeted by Ruth, our hostess, and she says there is a table reserved for us and she lead us to the back room where usually the employees hang out, and there was a single table set up with linens and a vase with flowers and a bottle of champagne. Brian came along and told us that we didn't have to order, that the chef had taken care of it for us. Also hanging out of the chiller that held the champagne was a set of keys. Brian had arranged for us to stay in one of the view rooms at the lodge for the night. WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE. I had not been expecting that at all. So we had a great dinner, and we got to stay in a really nice room for free. All because Ian is a really hard worker.

We Jumped Into the Ocean

Since the really sunny day's are few and far in between we like to make the most of them. I have been wanting to jump off the dock into the ocean, but I have yet to do it. So when we had a good day I finally got the courage. We went with two other employees: Dan and Kara.

Birthday Weekend in Juneau

I can't believe that my birthday has already come and gone. My birthday signifies the fact that we have less than a month left here in Alaska. But we are making the most of it. Over my birthday weekend Ian took me to Juneau. We have been planning our trip since we first arrived in May.

We came over on the FX II (our boat) when it made it's Friday night trip to Juneau. After checking in to our hotel, The Driftwood, we went in search of some seafood. It wasn't hard to find. We ended up eating at Doc on the Water, which is located on the docks. 

Our first full day we were off to Mendenall Glacier, Alaska's most famous Glacier. But it was off to a a rocky start. We decided to take the city bus. But the bus drops you off a mile and a half from the visitor's center. We step off the bus and was meet by pouring rain. We had our rain jackets but we had not brought our rain pants. So after only a few minutes in the rain our jeans were soaking wet. By the time we reached the visitor's center, I wanted nothing more that to get dry. After a little time indoors the rain let up and we decide to give it another try and ventured back outdoors to walk around. It was beautiful, even though it was cloudy and a bit foggy. All that just helped to enhanced it beauty.

For my birthday dinner we took a recommendation from a guest that Ian had waited on at the lodge. We at at the Twisted Fish, in downtown Juneau. It was amazing. Ian had a little too much fun with his king crab legs, while I thoroughly enjoyed my seafood pesto pasta.

 

On Sunday we decided to hike Mt. Roberts. It is the mountain that is behind the city of Juneau. The map that you follow actually takes you though the residential area of Juneau, where you follow a maze of stairs before actually hitting the trail. Then thing that really stood out to me was the fact that a lot of the houses in Juneau are all brightly colored. The hillside is covered in house of blue, red and yellow. Maybe that is to help lighten the mood of a place that can seem dreary at times because of all the rain. Once you are on the trail, you are instantly engulfed in trees. On this particular day it was foggy in the mountains, so we could not see a lot beyond the trees but the forest itself was amazing. 

The took us a little over an hour to reach the visitor's center. The visitor's center is not at the top of the mountain. Ian wanted to continue on to the top which would have taken us another couple of hours to hike but we didn't have that kind of time. Instead we decide to hike to Father Brown's Cross (only a mile round trip), which was dedicated to him, because of his involvement of created the visitor's center.

If you send $5 in the gift shop the ride down on the Tramway is free. The Mt. Roberts Tramway is a big attraction that people ride from downtown Juneau to the VC which is sit sat 1800 feet. 

Afterwards, it was time to head back to meet the ferry. I wish that we could of had a few more days to spend Juneau, because there was more that I wanted to do, but we did quite a lot in the short time that we had.

The Beardslee Islands

Ian and I finally decided to do a kayaking trip on our own. We had done a couple with other people and we (mostly me) felt comfortable enough to be on our own. Instead of going up bay we we decided to to the Beardslee Islands. It is just a short hour kayak from the lodge to the entrance or "the cut". The route that we took is only accessible at high tide, because at low tide there are places where the land is completely dry. There is another entrance but that is a eight hour trip, jut to get in. 

Going through the cut itself, is beautiful. It is heavily forested on both sides, and the withe of the channel was about a quarter of a mile. Even though it was high tide, we still had to watch out of massive boulders that lay just under the surface of the water.

Once you get through the cut, then there are numerous low-lying islands, some with trees and heavy brush and some that are almost barren. We took our time just paddling from one shore to another hoping to see some wildlife. Not too long after we got there we came upon a female moose and her baby. We paddled close to shore and just watched them graze. The female would look up at us every once in a while but then would return to grazing, realizing that we weren't a threat. The baby on the other had could not concentrate on eating, because quite often it would look at us and you could tell that we made it nervous. 

After a few hours of paddling the weather started to turn cold, so we decided to head to our campsite. It is a site that is regularly used by people who visit The Beardslee's. It is a giant rock that is semi-flat on the top. It is a good distance from shore, just at the start of the brush, and you climb up from the back. I really liked this spot because it gave you a complete 360 degree look of everything around. (The name Beardslee Island comes from the fact that are a lot of black bear sightings in this area).

After we set up camp, we wondered a little bit. We were camped near a cove so at low tide there was a lot to explore.

As we retired for the night it started to rain, and the wind picked up. It was sort of a miserable night. Just as you would start to fall asleep a especially strong gust of wind would hit the tent and you would be instantly on high alert. But the good news is that we have an amazing tent that kept us dry and warm even though it rained all night long.

The next morning as we were packing up I was looking for our bear canister (a hard plastic cylinder canister that a camper is to keep all food and anything with a scent, such as toothpaste in) WAS GONE. The rangers tell us to keep the canister 100 yards from your campsite nestled in the rocks above high tide, and that is what we always do, and IT WAS GONE. We looked around for a couple of minutes for it, but we both know that it was kind of hopeless. It was gone. The worst thing is that we borrow them from the visitor center but we had to pay $65 for it because we lost it. 

 

We had to work in the early afternoon so we had to head home as soon as possible. But of course we had to time it with high tide. There is a lot of logistics that go into the tides, most which are really interesting: The tide changes every 6 hours, and the tide is strongest 3 hours before the new tide. Coming into The Beardslee we had the tide on our side, but coming out the tide was going to be against us. Since the cut is not a very big channel, the flow of the water is much stronger. It was quite the experience. We went through the cut 2 hours before high tide, so the water was still moving very quickly into The Beardslee's. It was a little scary. Ian called it white water kayaking, which is a little bit of an exaggeration but kind of true. If at some point we both stopped paddling we would almost instantly come to a complete standstill and the current would start to carry us back the way we came. Plus, Ian had to really focus and be on the lookout for boulders that would cause the kayak really bad damage if we were to accidentally come into contact with.

We made it back alive, of course. And once again we were unlucky or lucky because we did not run into one bear while there. (Although it was probably a bear that took our bear canister.) Even though we were only a couple of hours away from the lodge, we were in a completely different world, and it was a great trip.

The Homeshore Cafe

On the same day as the beautiful sunset, we had made plans to go into Gustavus and eat at the Homeshore Cafe. It is located at four corners, the only intersection with stop signs in the town. It is a pizza place, with amazing pizza. It was the first time I have had real pizza in over two months (you never know how much you miss things until you can't have it). It was great. The sun was finally shining after a few weeks of cloudy, wet weather, so of course we decided to sit outside. We went with a couple of our fellow employee's and had a great time. 

Attached to the Homeshore Cafe, is a art store with paintings and little homemade knick-knacks like coffee mugs, soaps, lotions, and little statues. Attached to that is a ice cream shop that makes homemade ice cream. I had fudge oreo cookie, and Ian had blueberry.

First Sunshine in Twenty Days

The past few weeks have been some gloomy ones. I think that we have had more rain in these few week than all summer long. There would be three or four day stretches where it just rained continually. And not just a drizzle but a constant downpour. The day that the sun finally came out this is the sunset that received. It was breathtaking.

The Gustavus Golf Course

Gustavus has a 9 hole course that has clubs that anyone can use and a tin can to put your money in for the course fee, and Ian finally got to go. He has been really itching to hit some balls but just hasn't been able to coordinate his schedule with anyone else until now.