Petersburg seen from our boat trip on Saturday
Erin and I have begun to adapt to this strange new land, and after three beautiful sunny days in a row, along with an amazing apartment on the water we have really begun to enjoy this adventure.
It has been a few weeks since I updated the blog, and I have become much more familiar with my job. I spent last week talking to both sides of a heated city employment contract negotiation, including a union rep and the city manager.
The story I wrote about the pro skiers in Petersburg was picked up by the AP, and published in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks and Ketchikan, I was pretty proud of that accomplishment, especially since I've only been here a few weeks...
I also shot some footage for my first video for the Pilot last week! I'll post it when I'm done...
Erin and I were also housesitting for a friend, Zieak, who happened to have some available laundry facilities along with a tanning bed!
We really appreciated being able to help him out to say the least.
We have continued our experimental cooking, this is Erin showing off a chicken pot pie. We will be bringing this recipe to family gatherings soon...
We moved from our old apartment in town to a newer apartment on the north end of Mitkof Island on Sandy Beach Road. It is a one bedroom apartment with some great views of the ocean and includes internet, cable and utilities, and is much more to our liking.
Here is the view from our front door.
Kitchen
Living room
Bedroom
(Notice the new duvet cover, Erin is very happy)
What do you get this girl?
I figured a girl who decides to come to Alaska with me deserves some flowers once in awhile...
THE BOAT TRIP
Erin, Orin and I took a boat trip on Saturday with the intention of seeing the Le Conte Glacier and fishing... We got WAY more out of the trip than we expected...
First Erin and I got some rain bibs. Orin approves
On the way to the glacier we came upon a Sealion "haulout" the noise of them grunting and roaring was spectacular.
It sounded like a the best burping/belching contest ever...
As we continued on our way to the glacier (which we could not reach due to large icebergs) we came across some beautiful icebergs 4 times the size of our boat! Navigation to the glacier got pretty interesting so we decided to wait until later to make an attempt at the glacier.
On the way back we had a brilliant idea to stop at a small island to make a fire to grill hotdogs, luckily we consulted our tidebooks before getting too into the idea and realized we would be stranded due to a receding tide, so that idea went out the window, and we enjoyed cold hotdogs for lunch (actually not too bad)
While we snacked on our hotdogs in the bay, we saw far out in the distance what looked to be a small plume of smoke. We soon found that we had come across at least two humback whales!!!!!
If you look closely you can see the black dot on the surface... we didn't have great zooming capabilities
We were ecstatic and motored a little closer for a look. We saw them dive, and throw their flukes into the air as they sank below the surface, it was amazing.
Erin driving the boat
We headed back to Petersburg for some much needed warm coffee and a short rest before heading a short ways down the Wrangell Narrows to a halibut fishing spot we had heard about.
In short time Orin and I had managed to get our hooks caught below the boat in a "little rascals" moment where we both thought we had a nibble...
Frustrated fishermen
We then began our odd fishing session that began with reeling up these peculiar sea cucumberesque creatures that ate our bait in a matter of minutes!
Orin even managed to reel up a Tanner Crab
(below the legal limit unfortunately)
He also caught a Halibut (our fishing target) and after some debate we decided to keep it. It turned out to be a legal catch, but did not yield a significant amount of flesh... oh well it was something.
All in all it was a spectacular day filled with great memories. I was extremely happy that Erin could experience some of the truly Alaskan experiences.
Today we finished unpacking our stuff in the new apartment and Erin made a fantastic spaghetti feast.
Can't beat the scenery.
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