Saturday, August 1, 2009

Old boats, New Tales

We took a side trip into Ninilchik harbor, where we used to base from in our old halibut longline days, and lo and behold, our old vessel was still there. When we fished her, (as did Orin), she went by the name of Brandi Jo, but now is the Cindi Jo. The Russian fiberglass boats are the majority in the harbor, but she still looks tough as ever in all her aluminum glory!



Well, our part of the season is over - the tales are still being told, and the memories and scars will last for a while, but for us, back to the “other” life! . The Thursday opening was cancelled, and many of the fish operations pulled their gear out of the water and began the shutdown process for this season, so we felt it was time to leave.
We fly standby to take advantage of Emery’s benefit with the airlines that lets parents get around pretty cheaply, so getting home was somewhat of an adventure in its’ own right.
We flew in a Cessna Grand Caravan operated by Grant Airways out of Kenai (holds about 8 people) up to Anchorage on Thursday night. The hospitality of my cousin Katherine, her husband Brian, and the 3 Dean boys was welcome – she picked us up at the airport, fed us supper, gave us a place to sleep after several hours of reminiscing, then got up at 4 am and took us back to the airport to get our plane.
We got out of Anchorage fine, but were stuck in Seattle till 9 that night. Finally we got a place on a plane to Missoula, about 3 hours from home. We called David, my climbing buddy, on the off chance that he was visiting his daughter Ashley in Missoula and we could bum a ride. He and Debbie were on their way home from Missoula, but he delivered his wife to their home in West Glacier, turned around and drove back to meet us at the airport at 11:30pm, then drove it over again! What a guy! We finally got home to slobbery kisses from Willie at about 3:30 am!
Sigh….
Stay tuned for next year – we’ll either own a site ourselves, or be checking out trollers down in Southeast Alaska. Want to read a good fishing book? Try “Alaska Blues”, by Joe Upton.

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