August 22
Sunday morning and we are up in the drizzle, get the tent packed away and head for the bakery/coffee shop. Had some FANTASTIC blueberry cream cheese danish and couple of latte's to go. The drive back north up Kenai looked just like the drive down, still no views across Cook Inlet toward Mt Redoubt. Took a side trip through the town of Kenai, nice little town. A stop at Tern Lake to make some
sandwiches and to look at the salmon in the creek. Lots of bright red salmon, not sure what kind they were. On to Seward, it also looked about the same as last time we were here on the 5th of July, rainy and low overcast. We found a site in the city campground right next to the hike/bike trail and the water. Not a bad spot with LOTS of people watching opportunities.
August 23
Woke up to partly cloudy and windy. The mountains around us were mostly visible and spectacular. We could see Mt Marathon, the one Julie ran on the fourth of July, thats just CRAZY girl, GREAT JOB! Turned into a great day weather wise. Made reservations to go out on a Halibut trip on Wednesday, should be fun. We just kind of hung out all day, wandering the streets of Seward.
August 24
The sky is clear, We watch a huge cruise ship back out of port and turn around in the bay, a very nice pirouette by a 1200' long ship. We headed up to Kenai Fiords NP's Exit Glacier and took a couple mile hike up to the snout of the glacier, pretty hike. That afternoon we sat and had fish and chips on a restaurant deck overlooking the small boat harbor, soaking up the wonderful sunshine.
August 25
Excited and up early (5:00 AM) to go fishing. I have always dreamed of going out on an Alaskan halibut fishing trip and today it is happening. I made coffee and scarfed a bowl of cereal then hopped on my bike with my pack full of gear and rode down to the docks. Went out with Pro-Fish-N-Sea on the boat named the pursuit. There were ten “fish People”, the Captain (Kevin) and deck hand (Willy). Heading out of the bay was spectacular, clear sky's, light winds and a great moon set over Mt Marathon. Saw mountain goats and huge bird colonies on the rocks near the mouth of the bay. Lots of Murre's, gulls and Puffin's. The ocean was calmer than anytime I had ever been out at sea, no wind and swells of maybe 2', unbelievable. The captain took us out about 15 miles off shore into the gulf of Alaska. We dropped anchor in about 280 feet of water and Willy went over the equipment and how we would fish. They started dropping baits over the side and handed me a rod with a 2.5 oz lead jig head w/a 10” twin tail grub. Drop it to the bottom (a long wait) then start jigging. One of the guys had a bite on the bait in about ten minutes and pulled up a nice 40 # halibut, it looked like a lot of work! Things were kind of slow for the first half hour but started to pick up. Fish started coming into the boat pretty regularly, but still no bites for me. My arms were getting tired of yanking that giant lead head up. I finally hooked a fish and brought it up, about a 20 pounder so I let it go. I caught three more fish before I decided I better keep one so I would have something to show for my money. There were some Lingcod and Yelloweye Rockfish caught by others along with lots of halibut. One of the guys hooked a Salmon Shark that he fought for about an hour before breaking him off. We had a couple of looks at him as he got him near the surface just for the fish to head back down to the bottom. The captain guessed it was about 7' long and 400 pounds or so. It was a hell of a battle and the fish WON! I cuaght another halibut that was about 60 pounds and then a couple of nice lingcod. Everyone on board caught there limit of two halibut and two lingcod. It was FUN. We got back in and they filleted the fish for us. I had 54 pounds of fillets that I had packaged, frozen and shipped to my Dad's house for future consumption, YUMMY! Sheri met me at the docks for photos then we went and ate a hamburger. Is there something wrong with having all that fresh fish and going out for a burger? Probably so.....
August 26
Another beautiful day in Seward. We whipped up some breakfast then headed for the Sea Life Center. It is a pretty cool aquarium that has lots of information on the Alaskan sea life. I think one of my favorite things was the giant fish tank that had the aviary above it. Watching the Murres and puffins swim into the depths was really cool, it was like they were flying under water, very cool indeed. For dinner we decided some salmon on the grill would be good. After all the money I spent yesterday, I am at the fish market buying salmon, that's messed up. The salmon was fantastic, I need to catch some.
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