....and I hope you like Salmon too

You like the lack of updates once again do ya? Well let me just tell ya, in a crazy turn of events I have a new job. I left the big boat a couple of weeks ago for reasons we don't need to get into here. Let's just say that I am a fan of good management practices. So now! I am driving a fishing charter boat in Elfin Cove, Alaska. It is a cool little catamaran with 400 horsey's. reeheheheheheeeee
Just yesterday I took a group of 4 good ol' boys out and we caught the limit on halibut, coho, and were one shy of limiting out on kings.

It is a big fishing lodge that folks come up to fish. I have been to Elfin Cove once before but only briefly. It is a really cool little place, wickedly quickly becoming my favorite place in southeast. There area a few lodges, several private residences, and lots and lots of commercial trolling boats. The whole place is built on board walks, very picturesque.

Last night a neighboring lodge had a party for four high school graduates. They invited the whole town over, had a great meal, and then everyone migrated over to a big board walk area in front of the general store across from the hosting lodge, who then must have lit off at least five thousand dollars in fireworks. More fireworks than I have seen in some towns for the 4th. The whole while fishermen were telling stories about how the kings were all over that day.

Four or five gents had guitars, mandos and banjos and the kind of voices one would expect in these parts. Just before I came back to the lodge to turn in, a big blond dreadlocked fisherman sang his version of Bob Marley's I'm Jamin, only the words were changed to King Salmon. After a while everyone pitched in their own fishing/ak based verses.

King Salmon King Salmon King Salmon King Salmon and I hope you like King Salmon too. Said I hope you like salmon

a hope ya like salmon

Grand Slam

Around here we call it a Grand Slam. A calving glacier, a bear, a breaching humpback whale, and a pod of orcas... all in one day. Then add to that a 42 in halibut, for extra measure. It was quite a day.

Sit-kickin it

The transit north went well. We were crazy fortunate not to run into any weather. We got showered on the morning we left Seattle, but that was it. No rain. No Fog!

The first morning underway, I awoke and climbed the ladder to the crew mess. Just as I got to the top I looked out the window and saw a big bull Orca just off the port side. We were somewhere in Canadian waters. It felt like a great way to get the day/trip started. I filled up the coffee mug and went to the bridge to take over my 4 hour watch. Over the next 4 days we steamed straight through to Ketchikan,

fueled, rested, and then set out for a week of anchoring and checking out all the fishing and hiking spots for the summer. We also stopped off at the Alaska Fish and Game to get our Guide Licenses. I enjoyed a mint.

It was crazy-go-nuts to be moving north at a constant speed of 9knots, because each day we were gaining daylight, and by going so slow we could see the change daily.

It is much cooler than flying. Much cooler. Maybe the first two days we gained 5-10 minutes of light per night, and by the 4-5th it was just under an hour. It is not getting dark now until just shy of midnight. Over the next few days we familiarzed ourselves with the areas where we will be hiking and caught a few halibut. We even found a stream where I could get the fly rod out and I landed 3 small cutthroat trout on a brown and green nymph. Once we get guests on board it is company policy to only instruct them on how to fish, not to heavily fish myself. So that is kind of a bummer, but I imagine I will have some opportunity to get the fancy orvis rods out again at some point, for some light "instruction".

We are now in Sitka, doing final preparations on the ship and ourselves. We will toss docklines for the first trip of the summer on Sunday. I am ready to get actual guests on this tub so I can hone in my guide skills and hopefully be able to put on a good show after a couple weeks of faking it.

Here are a couple shots. One of the ship as we left Seattle, one looking forward from the stern on the skiff deck, and one of the gangster running the skiff with the fuzzy dice. And yes that is medical tape surrounding my finger, because if you know me, you know I break stuff. just skin this time. This time.

Straight Up Balla

ICA 2011

Ole’ Okay.   Winter is over, summer is here!   Talk about your brain killer.   I finished up work at the mountain last Friday, put all my land-belongings into storage on Saturday, and on Sunday I drove to Port Orchard, WA, to my floating home for the summer.  The M/V Liseron.  Big ol’ yacht.    Since then the week has been full of  scrubbing a winter’s worth of  scum off of the decks, and everything else.   Switching realities is not as difficult as I expected, but I am not all the way there yet so we will see.   A crew mate just busted me for calling the “Engine Room”, the “Motor Room” .   Symantics sure, but ski lift have motors, boats have engines.  Get it straight!

Funny similarity between Mt. and Boat: 

On mountain, for running around on frozen water crystals I have Shadowfax, the [un]trusty snomobile.  Fun for climbing, getting stuck and unstuck, towing stragglers, and general mountain transport.

On the Boat, there are 4 skiffs with 115hp outboards!   I have been playing around with dropping them in the water with the crane from the skiff deck and picking them up again, and ripping around outside of the marina in them.  They are going to be so fun to fish and crab and beach and boogie in all summer.   Hopefully I will find time to continue photoing and videoing and posting on here. 

Ice Ice Baby

To help you all in your adventure planning, here is a little (or a lot!) inspiration from an east coast sailor. 

First off, go take a look at this blog.  http://sailingsimplicity.com/about/ 
This girl quit her job, her house, many things. She bought a boat, moved on in, and set sail! 

Now, go take a look at her new project.  http://simplequestionmovie.com/

Woman on a mission!   If she raises $8000, she is setting sail this summer to go north and find an uncharted iceberg! And she is taking a video camera with to make a documentary.  She has set up a donation site on kickstarter.  If she reaches the $8000 your card will be charged, if not, you don't get charged.  What an incredible and inventive way to choose adventure and also to involve others who may not be able to give up everything and go on their own.  If you need an adventure but can't fit something this epic into your immediate future, go to her site and throw her some bones.  Plus, if you donate, you get your name in the credits!  Which will probably be your foot in the door to your new career in adventure film production and you will someday win a Grammy, probably in 2016.

Just sayin

The Driftwood

Idaho's Tallship

Oatmeal Goodness

Mix

1/2 cup oil        

1 cup sugar (I like brown)

2  eggs       

 

 Then add

1 cup milk        

2 tsp baking powder

 1 tsp. salt

3 cup oats

and maybe some fruit or nuts.  I like a ta  use tha blue berries, this time I used a tha canned peaches. 

Cover it. Bake it how ya like it, soft or with some crunch

Grub it.   mmhmmm.

 

In motion

Alright Alright.   Time for an update.  Summer 2011 is coming together.    I haven't been back to Alaska since I left in the fall of 2007.  However, this last year the AK has been calling my name bit by bit, and I am giving in.  I have taken a job for a small cruise company, a non-prof, that has a focus on eco-tourism and environmental education.  The crew muster call is May 9th. Shortly thereafter we will transit up the inside passage to either Sitka or Juneau, not certain yet, where we will take on our first boat load of "talking cargo" at the end of May.  Then it will be a summer of hot hot turnarounds, bouncing back and forth from Sitka to J-town each week, with Saturdays being the only off night each week.  Which, I am sure by the last trip in September I will be ready for some serious shore time.  However, the job itself should be pretty fun the whole time so I won't mind the heavy schedule.  Aside from ship's duties, most of my job will be as fishing/hiking/shore excursion guide.  I envision it being something like, "Hey guys, we drop anchor this afternoon and I am going fishing at 5, who wants to hop in the skiff and go with me?"  Ya, pretty excited about it!

The ship itself, Motor Vessel LISERON was built in 1952 in Seattle, sold to France as a minesweeper, and has been running trips for this operation since 1989.   She is pretty beefy, and I will be gaining a good amount of 500ton sea time. Upgrade! 

But there will be plenty of summer to talk about this adventure.  For now, I am just entering the tail end of the ski season and April will be a busy month.  Budgets for next year's season are due soon, and I am putting the finishing touches on the PNSAA spring operations conference and tradeshow, which will be just a week before I depart for AK. Ya, not much of a shoulder season for me this spring. I hope my mind doesn't explode as I switch from sticks to ships. It will be a weird feeling leaving the mountain (in very capable hands) three weeks before it officially closes.  Not to mention packing next season planning into this month as well.  TGFRB.  thankgodforredbull

Advice for life....

....from a 4 year old

"If you are home alone, just high five yourself"

-Bridger

It's Powerpoint, on Crack

A couple of weeks ago I was a presenter at Ignite Bend. Basically, people of all flavors can submit an idea on this website. "An idea?", you ask. Yes. An idea. Any idea. If you were to have 5 minutes on stage to talk about anything you wanted to talk about, what would it be? And oh yeah, you have to have a powerpoint to go along with it, the powerpoint can have only 20 slides, and the slides automatically advance every 15 seconds. So it is a speedy presentation with no time for hesitation. Then, people of all flavors vote online for the ideas they would like to see on stage. So I submitted this idea that I have been kicking around in my head for a couple years now, I don't really know why at this point, but I guess my idea struck a chord with those flavorful folks and I got voted in.

So I spent a couple weeks putting together my slideshow and was all set. It was a really fun night, and they gave all ten presenters their very own mug. I am going to fill mine with Tang.
It took place at the Tower Theater in Bend and the place was packed, sold out. That is like 1000 people! So ya I was a wee bit nervous, but it went well. The only thing I would do next time is to pick a topic I don't really care about. Since my topic was one I had been mulling over for some time, the perfectionist side of my brain will never truly be satisfied with the end product. So if there were a next time, I might pick a random topic. Wouldn't matter what, metallurgy, the history of Johnny Appleseed, kittens as a stocking stuffer...etc. Something random would be easy to get some laughs, and keep myself entertained.

The organized folks put it on youtube too! Which I have embedded here.