Gone Fishing

I missed my last two classes of Toughen Up this week. Tuesday I was too busy packing and Thursday I was out of town.

We were busy bees Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Darcy and I got ready for our trip to Alaska. My mom arrived on Wednesday to look after the kids.

Thursday, very, very early in the morning Darcy and I left for Seattle, after a brief lay over we went on to Juneau, Alaska. I left my iPhone in the seat pocket of the airplane and I am really disappointed that it was not turned in. It isn't lost, phone owners are easy to find. I find it hard to imagine that someone actually kept it. I am trying to remember that it is just a phone, but the cost to replace it makes me feel a bit ill. This cast a bit of a cloud on my trip but I did still enjoy the fishing.

From Juneau, we had a charter flight onto the island of Hoonah. We met our boat and captain, Skip, at the Hoonah dock. I should mention that Skip is our boss and this was a work related trip -- very lucky! We had dinner with the departing crew and slept overnight, on board, before we set off in the morning. I hardly slept so after our long day of travel Thursday and a rough night I was a bit foggy.
We spent two days and two nights on the boat. Our crew of 6 fished fairly steady bringing in mostly halibut, which was a little disappointing because we love salmon.  I caught only a single halibut Saturday.  Darcy did very well catching several halibut, rockfish and salmon.  Some of which we kept, some we released.

We were visited by a pair of friendly sea lions that swam around the boat playfully for quite awhile. We also did some whale watching which was fantastic as always.This year I even drove the boat. This is no small boat either, it is a Nordic Tug, which is pretty much a floating RV.

Saturday afternoon I had a very unusual catch. I hooked a big one, I had help from Darcy, Brian and Skip bringing in it. With all that work, we imagined there was the biggest, heaviest halibut on the end of the line. But what surfaced was a Manta Ray. It must of gotten hooked swimming by my line. It was fantastic looking and eventually was happy to be free of the line. My arms hurt for a few days after that.

We left the boat Saturday evening and boarded a float plane which returned us to Hoonah. We then went on to Seattle where we stayed the night before flying home Sunday. We were so excited to the see the kids when we got in. They had a great time with Grandma Cindy. It was the first weekend since June that they were so pleased to have time to play with their toys at home.