So many pictures - so little time to post!

I guess if I didn't go fishing everyday I could spend more time posting pictures but I'd rather be fishing and taking pictures! :-)

So yesterday Willie caught this really weird looking fish. He's calling it a Yellow Eye. Apparently it's quite a catch and we will be bringing home the meat and eating it. Any way it's a big one and it's ugly!

The dock staff knows how to filet a fish and they know that Halibut cheeks are a delicacy and can cut them out and freeze pack them super-fast!  They also know how and where to find the fish’s ear bones. Did you know that fish have ear bones?!?! I didn’t! But they make beautiful jewelry. The young man working on the Yellow Eye was able to get the ear bones for us… here are pictures of them. Aren’t they interesting? They are supposed to be pure ivory.

 Cool huh!

PS These mosquitoes are eating us all alive!

Same things and different things

As in life on the outside ;-)

Same things

• breakfast
• menu each week
• lots of day light
• sore muslces
• lack of sleep
• the beauty of the ocean (did I tell you it's just about 100 ft from where I am right now?)
• where we go to fish

Different things

• Jobs on the weekends - after my regular duties today I made beds, mopped floors, took pictures for the website and sorta babysat the young people who work here!.
• Lunches
• Moths - there are tons of moths here and they are all very delicate and beautiful and different
• Spiders

This has been a most unusual day. We didn't get a chance to go fishing and it feels weird! I like being on the water. The animal kingdom is very active. Every time we go out we see pods of whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters and the strangest fish!

Yesterday was very sunny and we all got a little sunburned.  I have crappy phone reception at the lodge but great reception in the middle of the Northern Pacific Ocean with Orca's playing near by.

New week...

Saturday and Sunday were quiet - comparatively speaking!

Sunday evening a family reunion came to visit. There are a total of 47 guests here now. The first week we had 10, second week we had 5, now we have 47! Shift gears to high speed!  We also got 4 more kitchen help so now we only have to work the morning shift from 4:30-10:30 then we can go fish!

Well with all the new additions to the island, all the good boats are taken out by the paying guests (imagine that!) so we got a little dinky boat. As you can see in the picture, the weather is awful! Rainy and windy and so so cold! Well we got the boat out a little ways, going very slowly but it wasn't fun or profitable fish wise so we decided to move to a new location.

My tummy didn't like all the rocking and wave jumping so I asked Willie to take me home. I crawled back into bed and slept most of the afternoon. I took a shower and curled my hair! Folks won't recognize me without my ponytail and baseball cap!

I'm waiting for Willie and our friends to return to camp. It's dinner time and I'm hungry!

This is the lodge upstairs. This room has games and puzzles, a tv, a fly making station and a beautiful view. It's used for church, staff meetings and guest orientation.

Here's a picture of the rainy windy cold weather.

How my day goes...

• The alarm goes off at 4:00 AM. Willie hits snooze one time and gets up. 
• Wakes me up at 4:15 AM! I hurry down the hall hoping and praying that no one is in the bathroom! Back to the room, wake up in the dark because they shut the main generator down every night at 10:30 and back on again at about 4:45  AM! The sun doesn't really set here so it's not totally dark and I can find my things to get dressed. And my hair in a ponytail and my hat on.
• Out the door at 4:28 AM to work at 4:29. It's still dark but I'm laughing because there are a few select power outlets that are on the other generator for important things like oxygen and CPAP machines, etc. The thing that's making me laugh is the coffee pot is on!
• I'm in charge of the dining room and the lunches for the fishermen. We started something new and fun, we call it, "The Sandwich Bar" to help the fishermen get the lunch they really want. I set everything out like the lunch meat and bread, mayo, mustard, chips, home made cookies, etc so our guests have a great lunch experience while they are fishing So I get that all set up.
• Now it's time for breakfast 5 AM... same thing every day. Eggs from a carton, Milk from a carton, Orange juice from a carton, hash browns from a carton. Real cheese, real bread. Pre made sausage. Thick slices of ham and oven baked bacon. Just recently we've added canned peaches and fruit cocktail. I found some real apples and oranges and we can eat those too! We are staying at a fishing lodge in a really remote area so the food has to be able to be around for a while. The nearest Walmart in Juneau and the only way to get there is either by boat or plane. There are no streets or cars where we are. We get new people each Sunday. One of the lodges owners' friends goes to Walmart for us and sends our personal groceries with the guests on the plane.
• 6:30 the guests are awake and ready to eat and start fishing. After they finish I clean up the dining room
• Wash and sanitize the tables
• Put away the sandwich bar
• sweep and mop the floor
• Change clothes to go fishing
• 10:30 on the boat and heading for No Man's Land
• 11:00 catch Halibut
• 11:10 catch Halibut
• etc...
• 3:00 catch Halibut and head for home
• 4:30 start evening kitchen duty until 9 PM
• go to bed
• Start over again!

It was a very good day!

We finished our kitchen work early today and got out on the water by 10:30. Kathy and Willie caught a bunch of bait fish and Karl caught 2 cod, we cut them up for bait. Our first stop wasn’t good for halibut so we moved a little north and almost immediately starting catching them! We ended up catching our limit and got back to the dock in time to go back to work!

funny how we had to go all the way to Alaska to find friends who live so close to home!

Eagles

The day we got here one of the ‘neighbors’ brought a shark that they caught to share with us. I think I’ve talked about it before but now I have time to go into a little more detail and upload pictures too.  The shark was a 520 # Sleeper Shark. The Chef took a chunk of meat and some skin for something – I don’t have a clue what. They left the rest for the wild life. The eagles enjoyed the carcass more than anyone else and I enjoyed them enjoying it! It took them nearly a week to eat it all. The younger ones ate while the older ones stood guard but once in a while it was a free for all and about 20 of them ate at it at the same time. One dude just sat there the whole time looking like Barney Fife with a goofy look on his face, you’ll see him.  There are 2 young ones, they are the ugly ones.

One of them perched on the flag pole and watched from there, I went crazy snapping shots of him and then they started flying around and I just kept shooting.

They are like over grown sparrows. They sit in the trees and watch the world go by.

This is our pilot and plane. See! He's taller than our plane! He was a great driver and we all had a good time I'll post more later. Time is of the essence here!

Cindy's Apple Surprise Muffins

Our assignment here is helping in the kitchen. Willie mostly washes dishes but is quickly earning the trust of our 21 year old chef, KC.  Willie has helped him cook on the griddle, the oven and outside on the grill! I feel bad for him though because we make a lot of dirty dishes! He's a trooper and has that kitchen sparkling!

My jobs are numerous. My main job is to make lunches for the fishermen. They fill out a form requesting sandwiches, cookies, drinks and snacks. I fill the orders and put the food in an ice chest for them to pick up in the morning on the way out to the ocean. I also clean the dining room including washing the tables and mopping the floors!

KC puts out a 9:00 pm snack each night for the campers. Last night he asked me to make muffins! I didn't have a recipe per se but had a bulk muffin mix. I added the canned apples used for yesterday's pie and beat the heck out it!  Spooned it in the muffin tins and once in a while there would still be a good sized chuck of apples. They baked up really nice and fluffy and once in a while when you'd bite into one you'd get a surprise of a hunk of apple so we call them Cindy's Apple Surprise Muffins!

Willie went fishing with Bill again today. They caught 4 nice size halibut. Did I tell you how ugly halibut are? They are flat fish with eyes on the side/top of their heads but their mouths are twisted underneath them. They are the weirdest creatures!

I'll post the pictures later, it's 10:45 here and lights out was 30 minutes ago. 15 minutes early by the way!

The oldest daughter, Aurora is 13. She's very pretty and smart! Today we were looking at and learning about her camera. We had to take a break so the computer could reboot, etc so we were looking out the lodge window. In the trees right near the boat house were three eagles doing something very strange so we took our cameras down to investigate. Well there was a young ugly eagle pecking at an older eagle and pulling all his white feathers off his head! The old eagle was just sitting there bleeding and getting plucked! Another mature eagle was just sitting by watching while this young one mutilated the older one! It was amazing and gross. The two flew off and the injured one just sat there staring at us in surprise. Almost every one of his head feathers was off his head and all over the ground. Of course we took pictures and I'll upload them as soon as I can.

In the afternoon, Aurora and I went hiking behind the lodge. We saw an old house that was used by natives more than 30 years ago that was crumbled and broken.  Near it was a half of an old wooden chair. I can almost imagine a little family living there and the children playing in the stream and under the huge roots of the trees. It was a great adventure! We found two streams and interesting flora. I'll post pictures when I can... sorry. I just don't have time for extra curricular activities!

The campers leave Saturday morning and new ones arrive Sunday evening so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on picture posting by then.

Flying from Juneau to the Excursion Inlet

The flight from Juneau to Excursion Inlet was amazing. The little engine just droned on and on while we flew over snow capped mountains and so much water! I took pictures and video. It was pretty cool! And I’m surprised that I wasn’t afraid at all just amazed!  We landed at the cannery and Mark Warner was there to pick us up. I know now why he didn’t want us to pack too much! We had to pull the luggage over the rocks and dirt to the dock and then pass them down from land to the boat. THEN we had to do it again in reverse when we landed back here at the lodge! Wish I woulda known!

The youngest child is Kathryn, (she’s 8). She adopted me right away, took me on the tour of the place. A tour that only a little one could give. I know where all the secret doors are now. I helped her feed her little chickens and crossed the raging river with the instructions, “Don’t look down! Look straight ahead ONLY!”  and after she told me I didn’t need to hold my arms out like that, I should just walk normally.

Saturday after we arrived and ate dinner Willie went bear hunting with Mark and the others. Maxine and I were asked to help unpack the groceries. We thought sure, why not! Well come to find out the very first customers were showing up tomorrow and we had the entire summer’s inventory to unpack! It was kinda fun actually but it was very hard work. The big thing was that the packaging all got wet and we really had to unload everything and determine if any thing was ruined. It was a long long time.  Willie has a story to tell about bear hunting that mostly involves riding on the back of a 4 wheel ATV and lack of padding on the seat.

Sunday, was almost a disaster. I was exhausted from the trip and unpacking all the groceries for the lodge. Woke up to cold rain and the assignment that Willie and I were going to be working in the kitchen. We worked so hard all day! I thought we were going to get a break each day to fish or explore or whatever but yesterday we worked from first thing until last at night. But last thing they told us was that we were going to get to go fishing today! From 11-6! 

Took a shower in the Bath House. Wasn’t too bad really but went to bed with wet hair – hate to do that! Willie got up at 6 to help with breakfast. I slept in til 7:15! Got breakfast all cleaned up and got ready to go fish! 

It’s still raining here and it’s cold. I didn’t pack warm enough clothes! I needed thicker socks, better gloves, and two pairs of long johns. While fishing we saw a pod of whales but they were very far away. I tried to talk “Whale” to them but I didn’t do a good job, they went the other way. Bill our boat captain caught a sea lion! He has his line in the water with a half a fish stuck to it when the seal snuck up and grabbed it! Bill fought with it for a few minutes but it got loose and when it did he came back around and hollered at us for making him so mad!  Our friend Maxine caught a double ugly fish. I’ll post a picture for you.

I shot lots of pictures and will post them when I figure it out and I’m not exhausted. The shark was being devoured by eagles when we got back from fishing.  Pictures to follow.  Something is wrong with my camera and my pictures are all coming out so fuzzy. (Figured out that it is so humid here that the lens is fogging over!)  Ok so Here are the fishing pictures from day one.

The owner’s wife, Kristina took the kids to ‘town’ – Juneau for grocery shopping. She left Monday morning around 11 and was due back by supper.  Excursion Inlet is an island without any access via paved roads. The only way in or out is by boat or plane! Kristina took by boat. She was shopping and needed the space for groceries provided by the boat.  The weather got rough so she and the kids stayed in Juneau and headed back this morning.  The weather was still rough and the tide was low so they were only able to move at about 6-8 mph. Slow going for the long round the island. They finally made it back to the lodge a little afternoon today.  You really gotta plan your shopping when you live in a remote place like this!

Tuesday - Had morning coffee on the second floor overlooking the ocean thru 100 foot pine trees. The trees were filled with bald eagles like our trees at home are filled with sparrows each morning only the eagles are a lot easier to see – they are huge! Pretty cool way to start the day. It was raining when it was time to go fishing so I opted out. I got so miserably cold yesterday and we didn’t even catch any fish. I stayed and finished my work of making lunch for the customers for tomorrow then just hung out and did laundry.  Russell, the 11 year old, came running in to tell me that there were about 20 eagles sitting around the shark eating so we ran out with my camera and got some really great pictures. He decided that the crow was an unwelcome guest so he got his .22 and shot it!

It’s still pretty cold here. I thought I would be able to wear short sleeve shirts while we were here but I don’t see that as being possible – ever! 

Missing my family but I hear that dad got the lift on for his powerchair today!