Alaskan summers are all about cramming in a bunch of adventures and this last week I had 3 back to back. I have not been doing a good job this summer of writing but wanted to at least get down the highlights of these adventures and share some photos so here goes.
• MAIN BAY 2013
Went with Mike Phelps and his Dad Stan, Caleb & Joshua out to Main bay to snag some reds and we were not disappointed. The first day we had to work at them but over the two days we managed to snag up our limit of 60 and had to let go a bunch of small jack salmon as well. Mike’s boat the “Bounty Hunter” did great and other than the bugs it was a relaxing and fun time. The first night Joshua could not sleep and put his nose right up to Mikes face and said ” are you awake, I can’t sleep”, I am now said Mike and then he came in to the v berth do the same to me and kept repeating this for about 2 hours. We considered making him walk the plank but it was a bit funny as well. Being out in the sound really made me miss my C-Dory days and made me a bit sad not having my boat out this year. The decision to keep the Sundog up on blocks this year has been actually good so that we can catch up but for the last decade boating has been such a huge part of our family adventure that it has been interesting pursuing some other adventures like biking and just enjoying time at and around home base. Thanks Mike for getting us out back into PWS – it was great to share the time and of course to get some bounty on the “Bounty Hunter”.
• RESURRECTION TRAIL BIKE RIDE
This summer with the Sundog up on blocks I have spent a lot of time biking. I bought a new mountain bike from REI – http://www.rei.com/product/837481/novara-ponderosa-29er-bike-2013 and have really enjoyed hitting all the great anchorage bike trails and even took a bike ride with Kevin from my house all the way to Girdwood, for sure the longest bike ride I have ever taken. Other than bucking the wind along the Turnagain arm it was a great trip. So when Larry invited me to do the 38 mile bike ride from Hope to Cooper Landing over Resurrection trail it all sounded great and it turned out to be a wonderful trip. We broke the ride up into 2 days with a night at east cabin and then out to cooper landing. Other than one big dive over my handle bars thankfully into a pocket of thick grass, no injuries and really a beautiful trip. I have very little trail riding experience and you certainly had to pay attention or you would end up crashing and a certain amount of the trip required pushing your bike up the hills. With the right amount of vitamins we got it done and the highlight of the trip for me had to be the abundance and variety of flowers. Something about traveling along at bike speed through the plush fields of fireweed, Lupin, Forget Me Not and so many I did not recognize. Here is a great link to some AK flowers http://www.turtlepuddle.org/alaskan/wild/flowers-2.html – One of these days I would like to try and make this trip all the way through in one day. It would be a pretty long day but you could pack light and it would be an awesome workout. Thanks Larry for taking me on what has been an annual tradition for you and your family and friends for years, I can see why you do this each year and I hope to share another one of these with you.
• DUTCH BUST / COLD BAY
The goal was for Sundog Kym and I to make it out to Dutch Harbor to do some WordPress training for our great customers http://www.ounalashka.com Due to fog we had to land in Cold Bay to wait for weather and ended up having to return to Anchorage. To be honest Cold Bay was not on my bucket list but it is a beautiful place in a very rugged forsaken sort of way. It sounds like King Cove not far away would be fairly interesting to see and one of these days I really want to take the ferry from Homer all the way out the chain and back. I wish we could have made it out to Dutch to meet with the http://www.ounalashka.com team but it was actually a fairly relaxing day sitting on the plane and I was able to re-read re-work http://37signals.com/rework
So, that is a very quick recap of some of our recent adventures. I had planned on going dip netting with Kevin today but last night really did not feel well, I think just trying to pack in way to much. Then this morning Kevin came by with about 25 reds that a friend donated and we filleted and processed away. You have to love it when you don’t even have to get out of bed to get some Alaskan salmon delivered to your door front – thanks Mike and Kevin! – always fun to process fish and share the fellowship and bounty Alaska has to offer.
Blessing from the Sundog Crew and hopefully I will do better about sharing!
Joe, Cathy, Caleb, Joshua, Daniel, Gabriel & Josiah Law
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