7/6/08 - greetings from alaska!

[alantani]

i packed my bags wednesday morning and hopped a plane to seattle. then we took the milk run from seattle to ketchikan, then to sitka where we disembarked, then the plane continued on to juneau and anchorage.

our party included my father ......



my daughter .......



and my younger brother. we were met by justin guzmam, the lodge manager from frontiercharters.com. justin used to work at the local tackle shop down the street from my house.



the lodge is really nice! here are a few photos .......









here's the fish processing area on the ground level.









a few more shots of the lodge......













morning came early. 5am was the wake up call. this is my brother, ed!





this was the spread set out so that we could make our own lunches for the day.





it's a 15 minute drive to the dock.







boots and foul weather gear are provided. there were 16 staying at the lodge, and four boats.







our guide's name is jon geyer. we're looking at a 90 minute run to get to salisbury sound.













lot's of nice tackle. all accurates!!!!!!



we ran to the outside of salisbury sound, looking for sliver salmon. we ended up bailing after a couple of hours. little did we know that this would be our calmest day!



we ran inside and stuck a limit of rockfish.





then we set up for halibut. this white cord is alaskan fluorocarbon.



i have no idea what this is, but it was my best catch of the day.





at least we had these guys to keep my daughter entertained. they were everywhere!!!!!





it was an easy run back to the harbor.



dinner featured a full salad bar (rare, and very expensive, in alaska) with roast duck and rice pilaf.



day two, we stuck an easy limit of rockfish.



we decided to head straight out for slivers and got lucky for a change. we ended up with 7 in 2 hours.







dinner was a steak, baked potatos and mixed veggies.



day three and we're off and running again.







it started off nice and got ugly fast.





we could barely hang on all morning and only stuck one silver. and lucky me, i got an over 40 inch 30# king that we had to let go.



when jon fired up the engine to reset, he got an alternator and temp warning, then started to smell smoke. we fired up the kicker and struggled for 2 hours to get out of the slop and tuck back inside salisbury sound. i was at the tiller for most of that time, while jon dealt with the engine and the radio calls.





trying to keep a 27 foot boat straight in a following sea with a quartering wind is not my idea of a good time.






once we established that this was not fixable on the water, jon took over. you know, he never stopped smiling. he actually runs his own guide service in oregon and will be back home to oregon in september.





these guys came to our rescue and towed us in.







finally back at the dock, we got a quick ride back to the lodge. dinner was stuffed pork chops. really tasty!!!!!!



we have a 6am flight back to san jose tomorrow morning, so i'm hitting the sack early. monday we repack and tuesday we're off to hawaii. another full report to follow! alan