Salmon, Seals, Otters and Puffins

Yesterday, June 16, Garry and I went out fishing with Greg. He is the friend of Alicia, our favorite shopkeeper, who befriended us in Sitka. Garry went to fish and I went along for the ride and the scenery.Greg picked us up at 7 AM on a grey, overcast day. What else is new. At least we had only a drizzly mist. On the way out to the fishing spot we saw Otters swimming. They are so cute floating on their backs looking as if they didn't have a care in the world. Once we got out in the Bay the poles went over and within the first hour they had caught a 20# halibut and a 25# King Salmon.Garry was thrilled!!!!!!! We had a Puffin land right next  to the boat which I was thrilled to see. He sat by us all day while we were fishing. He would dive down from time to time and pop up a little way from us and float back over to the boat again. We were out on the water for about 7 hours. They caught many more smaller halibut which were released and 4 very large Lingcod. Unfortunately the season for them had closed the day before so they had to release them all. Greg wondered how they knew the seaon had closed. Several more Salmon  bites but they are wily, fighting fish and they got away much to the guys disappointment.  At one point Sea Lions showed up which was NOT a good thing for trying to catch salmon although I enjoyed watching them play. Just before we decided to head in Garry pulled up a 25# Halibut. When we got back to the dock Greg filleted all the fish. We then went to a private home where Greg had the ability to shrink wrap  everything in plastic bags .  We brought all the Salmon home and a couple of the halibut fillets.  I feel like I am back on the boat again as my entire (small) freezer is loaded with fish and I have 4 packages also in the refrigerator. We had salmon last night, Salmon salad at lunch and Halibut tonight. Am I growing gills yet?

We said our goodbyes to Alicia and Sitka today.  We have really enjoyed Sitka and hated to leave but new destinations call us onward. We had an uneventful ferry ride into Juneau on the Fairweather, a catmaran that does and went 36 knots. We were flying acrosss flat seas and saw a whale on the way. Tonight we are in Spruce Meadow campground and we will be here the next 5 days. After dry camping for the last 5 days we now need to do some chores, laundry, etc. We are only a couple of miles from the Mendenhall glacier and will go see that up close and personal tomorrow.  While we can post the blog on the WiFi here it isn't allowing us to transfer pictures so we will find the Library tomorrow and get the pictures up.