Sitka, Alaska 2008 - Day Two - Thursday, July 24th

The alarm went off at 4:00 am, we had a wake up call that morning also just in case we didn't figure out the alarm clock correctly. Ali woke up really well and we all got ready to leave with our rubber boots on. You wear rubber boots because they are constantly washing off the deck of the boat.

We decided to go to the restaurant Level II for breakfast. It is called Level II because it is on the second level. lol...We had our vouchers and headed across the street. It was light outside, just like it is at 8:00 in the morning in Utah. It was a little darker though, cause it was raining and cloudy. Ali decided to get a side of bacon for breakfast, that was $4.50 and a coke. She never gets to have a coke, I am not sure why I let her this time but that is what she ate for breakfast. I also gave her some toast and hashbrowns of mine. I had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, toast and ham for $11.00 plus my $3.00 drink. Dave had eggs, hashbrowns, toast bacon for the same price.

Ater breakfast it was 5:15 am, time to go back to the hotel and wait for the van to take us to the harbor. Today it was just Dave, Ali and I with our Captain Tim and Deckhand Dave. Normally they have 4 people in the boat, but we wanted to do a crab and shrimp day which you have to travel a lot farther to the crab and shrimp grounds. So we had to buy the boat for the day and purchase the 4th persons slot on the boat. I must say...."IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT"! We had a spectacular day and I will explain why we thought so.

I had told Ali about Tim and how great he is. I also told her that he always had a nice big muffin on his boat in case you got hungry. She was looking forward to that muffin for 2 weeks. Talked about it every time she told someone where she was going for vacation. Well she finally got her muffin. Today she had a chocolate chip muffin (didn't take a picture of the chocolate one).

We headed out of the harbor and we didn't get to far and saw a young sea lion up on a rock. It had a flasher hanging out of it's mouth which meant that it had a hook inside caught. He probably tried to eat a fish that someone was reeling in. We could see that it was hurting. Tim got on his radio and called his wife, Octobre. He gave her the coordinates off his GPS and also the name of the island so that they would be able to come out and help him. We don't know what ever happened because when we came back 10 hours later he was gone.

The first thing we saw on our trip to the crab grounds were Hump Back Whales. WOW it was incredible. They were breaching and slapping the water. So exciting to see and I have always wanted to see that with my own eyes, not just on the Discovery Channel. You could hear them when they would blow out of their blow holes, sounded so cool. My camera shutter speed isn't fast enough so we couldn't get great shots, we captured the splash and never could get a tail shot. I hope I was able to capture it all on our video recorder, which we haven't had time to watch yet.

We also had an awesome opportunity with Dahl Porpoises, which are smaller than dolphins and are black and white. Tim set the boat to the right speed that they like, and they were jumping and crossing in front of our boat. We were able to go out on the bow of the boat and watch them. It was fantastic....again...shutter on the camera not fast enough to capture those fast little critters. I am sure the video will make us all sick when we watch it cause I couldn't find them in the view finder a few times.

We also saw a lot of sea lions, seals and bald eagles.

When we arrived at the location for the shrimp pots, we had to write our names on the buoy's that connect to the pots as part of the law. Here is a photo of Ali writing her name on her pots.

When we arrived at the crab grounds we were pulling in and way off in the distance you could see two little dots. You couldn't even tell what they were, but Tim could. He said, there are two bears up there on the beach and drove up there for us to take a look. It was great!

The whole trip up we also saw Sitka Black Tail Deer. They looked like the size of a large dog under the giant pine trees. They would be reaching up and eating the branches and stop for a few minutes to look at us.

Dave had to bait our crab pots. I was happy that he was there, cause I sure didn't want to do it. For bait they use salmon carcasses and heads, usually poking the wire through the salmon eye socket to hold it there....not my cup of tea.

Ali wouldn't hold a large crab but she did hold some babies that we had to throw back. Our limit of dungeness (snow) crab was 15 and we caught 13, so not to bad.

Then it was off to the shrimp area to check our pots. As we brought them up they didn't look like they had very much in them. By the time we pulled up 5 strings of pots, we had a large barrel full. On our way back to town, Dave and deckhand Dave pulled the heads off . I tried to help but they squirmed in your hand and I didn't do it fast so some goo would come out. I quit...they had so much to do, I felt a little guilty. Ali was even braver than me and did some. We ended up with 40 pounds of shrimp tails. After all the shrimp heads were pulled off and tails deveined our captain cooked us up some. They were delish and fresh!

Ali was so pooped before dinner that she took a little cat nap. When I snapped the picture she woke up. Dave and I weren't hungry but Ali was, so Dave ran across the street and got her a BLT sandwich at Subway, I think we were in bed by 7:00.
It was a great, fantastic day!