A Backwards Look

 I'm at the local laundry and am adding a backwards look at the last two weeks from my camera point of view. I'll add Jon's magnificent photos when I have the thumb drive with his pictures stored on it. I left it at home this morning! I took many pictures of my own, it is fun t see things from different points of view! I think he took an average of 141 photos each day he was here.

 It was an incredibly busy couple of weeks. Jon was here for one, by himself. Then, Steve came in the day before Father's Day. They did a million things and couldn't finish them all. I would like to think the highlight of this trip north was fishing. I'd arranged for them to go out with a charter from Ninilchik called Ninilchik Saltwater Charters and I was a bit nervous about it. Jon's a water baby and Steve's been on it a bit less. I went down with them and we had to be there at 4 am for their check in. As we drove down, Jon asked me if there were mountains on the far side of the water, like in Kenai area. I admit, I was a put annoyed with Alaska for making those glorious mountains overcast, but it was ok! We did start out with a fun sunrise on the 21st anyway.

The guys were pretty tired. They had been super busy and gotten not much rest the brief night before. When it doesn't get dark, you keep working! 

 While they were out on the water, I napped and went up to the church and met the story teller, Bob Kanegis.  I took a few photos here and there and chatted with the lovely Mary, who manages the land part of the charter company.

 The boat and van left the parking lot at 430ish in the morning and returned around 2. I'll try and share some of the 'notes' I took as Steve and Jon shared their experience.There were 6 people fishing from all over the place. They had to get into the boat before it was dumped into the water (Jon has photos of that part. I probably should have brought the thumbdrive...) at 5. Steve said it was a bit startling by being pretty rough at first. They said the bouncing, especially as they got dropped into the water in the beginning, was an 'Oh no, we're gonna die' sort of feeling! Thankfully, the inlet calmed before they started fishing. They fished over 200 feet down and it differed from my own experience. This one seemed less stressful. The guys said it was exciting and tiring, they didn't expect to feel as tired as they ended up!  The captain was hoping someone would catch a salmon, no one did. Steve caught the first keeper fish and Jon caught one of the bigger ones kept. (He was the youngest one on the boat, but the others thought he was at least in his late thirties!) There was a ling cod caught and some shark. They were told shark are eaten by halibut, but it is illegal to to use them for bait. There are a million rules to halibut fishing. The smallest ones couldn't be longer than 28 inches (I think  that is how my notes read), the larger ones were as big as you could catch. You, however, were only allowed to keep two. They ended up taking 44.9 pounds of fish back to Kenai. Thankfully, we ate some on Saturday and they left a couple packages with me. When they got to the Anchorage airport, their fish box was 49 pounds!!! Jon figures that the trip, the vacuum packing, the box, and the extra baggage still made their fish less expensive than what is for sale in the stores by almost half!

This first  photo might be Jon's fish being flung into the barrow by Matt. Both Steve and Jon said he was a good instructor. They enjoyed the whole experience and were glad to have gotten the chance to do it. They were really glad they left from Ninilchik instead of Homer because they would have had to get up earlier! The tides were sort of funny, probably because of solstice, which was noted by both the captain (Steve) and Matt. .

Fronts and Backs of the halibut caught that day. 

The cod. 

Jon looking contently at his fish. 

 A few of the fish hanging up on the hooks outside the cleaning area.

 Steve and Jon in front of the line up. Jon's' pointing to 'his' fish. Each person is given a 'mark' and that mark is made on the fish caught. The captain also notes on a paper  the marks and when the person fills his or her quota of fishes. Jon's fish is the one with blood on the tail.

 This is one of the little ones Steve caught. He also caught a bigger one, but had already 'chosen' his big fish and had to toss it back.

 Cleaning table, Captain Steve is from LA. I think Matt is a local. .

A very tired young man. We did make one more stop to look at the church and he did want to stop at a viewing area, but we managed to miss them. It was ok. He dropped off to sleep before we left K-Beach road! . 

As I mentioned earlier, I'll use Jon's photos next time I'm online. I'm so thankful they came up (I may mention that more than once!)