Catch Up

Well I know it's been a bit since my last post, I've been too busy out having fun and not keeping you updated. To start we'll jump back to Fourth of July weekend. My wife (Anne), my sister-in-law, and I travelled to Petersburg to spend the long weekend with family. Both Anne and I are from Petersburg so we get to see everyone with one trip.

We had an uneventful ferry ride down to Petersburg on July 3rd and arrived around noon. The rest of that day was spent relaxing and catching up with family (read we took a nap). We awoke on the 4th to find cloudy, rainy skies but strapped on the rain coats and headed downtown to enjoy the festivities. Petersburg always has a great celebration, the main downtown area is blocked for traffic and everybody plays street games and eats at various food vendors. We spent a couple hours walking around downtown then headed out the road for a picnic with Anne's family.

Luckily the weather south of town was nicer and we got to enjoy cloudy dry weather. We arrived to find some of Anne's relatives had already started a fire and we got straight to roasting hot dogs, and making S'mores. Once the eating was out of the way, we all took time to enjoy the outdoors.

Everybody came equiped for a good time, some of the family got out in the kayaks while Anne and I tried our hand at fishing. The fish around our picnic spot were a bit on the small side so Anne, my father-in-law (Dan), and I headed down the road about a mile to another spot we knew about. Dan had just purchased a 5 wt. fly rod and wanted to try it out.

Before Dan gave his new rod a try he wanted me to offer a little demonstration. I took a look at his flies and tied on a pink clouser minnow. I've never really found a fly that is more consistant and reliable for sea run cutthroat and dollies than the clouser minnow. Almost immediately I hooked into a nice cutthroat. After my demonstration Dan tried his hand at fly fishing. He wasn't too bad either, he even managed to pick up a small cutthroat. 

 

Before too long we managed to talk Anne in to trying some fly fishing. Anne has done a little fly fishing in the past, but she was a little rusty to start. It didn't take long and she hooked into a fish. She was a little disappointed when it turned out to be a bullhead. 

After fishing we headed back to the picnic to light off a few fireworks and see the rest of the family. Anne and her dad had stopped at the fireworks stand on the way out to the picnic so we had a pretty fresh supply. Anne and her cousins played with the sparklers while they watched Dan and I light off a some of the big stuff. 

We headed back into town to watch the fireworks display put on by the City of Petersburg. Despite being a small town, they really know how to put on a good show. This year was the best yet. I'm a big fan of things that go boom and these guys never disappoint. 

The following day my dad and I headed out in his boat to try flyfishing kelp beds and rock piles for some rockfish. I forgot to bring along a camera so unfortunately we don't have any pictures. It was a pretty good day, it ended up being a bit windy in places so we had to search around for a spot to fish. In the end we fished a steep drop off and picked up some small rockfish and a few Ronquils. We had a good time. It was our first try at this so hopefully our future trips will be more successful. 

 

We ferried back to Juneau on July 6th, it proved to be a very entertaining trip and we arrived later than scheduled. Halfway between Petersburg and Juneau the ferry received word of a vessel that had ran aground on a nearby reef, the boat was okay but they requested we slow down and not rock them with our wake. While the ferry was slow a large pod of Humpback whales moved into the area and we had to continue at a slow pace until they passed. The show they put on was quite entertaining. At one point a calf was continuously breeching beside its mother. Whale calves are fun in that way, when they are young they can be like any "child" and just want to play. So more often than not you'll see them jumping away just enjoying life. 

As we approached Juneau the ferry received a call about a possible vessel in distress in Taku Inlet, the captain diverted us to investigate. We steamed up Taku Inlet a little ways but never spotted the vessel, either way it was a fun detour. Well that wraps up a good deal of catch up, I've still got a couple outings to report and should have those up soon.