Our first trip of the year was in May out of Whittier. Our sole intent for this trip was to get out and get some fresh shrimp and to have a some fun after a long winter of snow. Unfortunately winter had not ended in Prince William Sound and the snow caught up to us each night.
Rowing to shore thru the slush, time for a bit of running around to relieve the energy a little boy can gather from a day or two confined to a boat.
Brodie and a big shrimp in the snow storm one evening.
Shrimping was good and we got a few pounds of fresh ones to enjoy. Here is a shot of the biggest of one of the pulls.
The shrimp bandit. On our way back in we stopped across the bay from the Whittier harbor to clean the days shrimp. I kept getting the feeling that something was watching me and when I turned around I finally spotted this guy sitting on the roof. When I went inside the cabin to get the camera it helped itself to a shrimp out of the pile I was cleaning.
A few minutes later it came back and landed on the roof again, I set a shrimp off to the side of the boat and went back to cleaning and sure enough down it came to get its second shrimp of the day.
This went on for a hour or so and I think I fed that guy about 5 good size shrimp. Half of them went back to the trees somewhere on the cliffs and the rest it ate on top of the raft on the roof of the boat. Kind of neat to watch it toss the shrimp in the air and catch it to reposition it for flight.
The next trip out was in June, again out of Whittier but this time I wanted to go look for a Black Bear and try and get some more shrimp.
We left Whittier and realize we forgot to get some ice for the cooler so we detoured up Blackstone Bay and had to go all the way to the back to find some ice. While we were back there we took the time to get a few photos.
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After finding some ice we headed West for some new unexplored (by us at least) country. We ended up spending the night in small cove off of the Unawik Inlet. Here I am sneaking off to go look for a bear. I did end up seeing one bear that night and I learned that I need a motor on that raft. Another group of hunters spotted the bear as well and they had a motor.
The next day we pulled the shrimp pots and found this strange little fish along with a few shrimp.
July rolled around and we decided to make another trip out to Prince William Sound in search of a Ling Cod for Brodie and more shrimp for all of us. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and we did not get far enough South to find ling cod, we did however make it to the Perry Island Oyster farm to get a couple dozen oysters and we did find some shrimp.
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Brodie tried his first raw oyster..... and like everything else he loved it and wanted more.
When I asked Jack if he wanted to try a raw oyster, this is the look I got back.
Sasha got a new life vest, it has a good handle on it to use the next time she decides she wants to swim. It does not seem to bother her.
The weather got kind of nasty, as a matter of fact we basically had to run and hide for the night. On the way from Knight Island to Culross Passage (our hiding spot) we spotted this hazard to navigation. It does not look very large in the photo but we got a bit closer and it was much bigger than our 28 ft boat.
August rolled around and we decided it was time to find some Silvers. The first stop was a quick overnight in Seward on our way to Homer.
We got a few silvers the first day out and the boys hammed it up for a photo.
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After Seward it was off to Homer for some fun. We decided to go out and try and find a Ling Cod (planned on running out past the Barren Islands) but the weather got bad so we stopped by flat Island for some Halibut fishing. Neither of the boys had caught a halibut on there own so we decided there was no time like the present.
Later in the Month and still searching for more Silver Salmon we took a chance on a rumor of some possible silvers out in Prince William Sound.
Brodie was in command and headed to the fishing spot.
Jack was manning the water cannon to keep the sea gulls at bay
Sometimes they just had to hang on to each other, not sure if this is just a brotherly hug or the beginning of a wrestling match, either way its a good photo.
Unfortunately we did not find any Silvers, but we do know where to get Oysters to go with our shrimp. If you look real close you can see the oysters soaking in milk at the top, on the half shell in the middle, along with shrimp grilled on the BBQ and a few shrimp that were going to go into the pasta after being cooked.
After dinner it was time to take the dog and one of the boys to the beach for a run.
Sunset in Three Fingers Cove that night
The next morning it was time to go home. We had been hearing a "notice to mariners" all weekend about a partially submerged boat so we went to take a look.
Not a pretty sight, but obviously the boat was heavily damaged and from the looks of it had been opened up to prevent it from floating again... it did not work.
That was the last trip of the summer, The Stor Fisk is now in storage waiting for spring.
