Alaska Day 33-34

Saturday June 17, 2006 Homer AK Log 0 Miles
The day starts with Sam showing up at our front door with a King Salmon. He left early this morning and went up to Anchor Point a few miles north of Homer. This was a very nice catch. Sam and Inez fileted the salmon and Herb grilled some of the filets for lunch. Now you cannot get it any fresher than that.

We get a couple of weeks mail from the post office after lunch. We do not even want to open the box, because we know it means work. So we spend a litlle while at the farmer's market before returning to deal with our mail.

Sam and Inez show up with nachos for happy hour.

Sunday June 18, 2006 Homer AK Log 0 Miles
We are up early to walk Jake and dress warm and dry for our charter fishing trip. The lady in the office of the rv park agrees to come by and walk Jake while we are fishing. She like dogs and this works out very well.

After carefully walking down the steep ramp to the docks, we meet Captain Dave, our host for the charter. The ramp is steep, because the tides here in Alaska rise and fall as much as 21 feet. So the ramp has to pivot and the dock float up and down as necessary. So at low tide the ramp is really steep and at high tide not so much. So far we have only entered and exited at low tides. It seems that the Homer harbour has several Captain Daves. One of his "friends" comments that maybe they should start spraying to control the number of them. The journey to the fishing grounds takes about an hour and a half, during which time we see much wildlife. Ducks, sea otters and many others. We even spot the tail of whale in the distance as he dives. The overcast day keeps us from seeing the beautiful mountains surrounding the bay and Cook Inlet. When Cook explored this area, he thought the inlet was a river because the current is so strong here.

We stop to fish in 130' deep water. Captain Dave rigs our gear and we drop the two pound sinker with half a herring on the round hook down to the bottom. Almost immediately, we start getting bites and Lowell from Las Vegas, the 4th member of our party of 4 catches the first halibut. The first ones caught are small so they are released in hopes of catching some a little larger to fill out our two per person daily limit. After an hour or so of fishing, we lose half of our fishermen to the scourge of landlubbers everywhere, seasickness. That leaves Sam and Herb the task of continuing to haul in the halibuts. That 2 pound weight gets very heavy after a few hours. So it is almost with relief when Captain Dave brings Herb a fresh herring and informs him that this is the "Last Bait". He must be a Floyd Cramer fan. We return to Homer with our limts, a nice string of halibut, which you can see here.

Walldog, Willie and Jake