Alaska 2008- AKA City Girl No Longer In A City-Part 1
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Scottie and I had the opportunity to go to Alaska on his parent’s annual trip. They have been bugging him to go for years as his two older brothers have all been and alas he was the last in the family to experience it. I talked him into it, not that he needed much of a nudge, he is up for adventure as much as I am. Preparations for this trip began months ago, I needed to purchase hiking boots, yes hiking boots. I will have you know there are very few “cute” hiking boots but I found a not so gross pair from the North Face. I ended up being a walking advertisement for the North Face; pants, shorts, shirts, fleece…yeah I shoulda bought stock. The impulse buy of the orange REI raincoat 6 months prior ended up being quite useful and for ONCE my inability to pass up a deal worked out in my favor. I chose a neutral color palette so I only brought 3 pairs of shoes, one too many actually as I would not be needed my Rainbow flip flops in the 50 degree rainy weather on Alaska. Needless to say I was able to squish all of the “necessities” for the next 10 days into the largest suitcase I owned, I really need to become a better packer 
Our flight left at 8am which was a nice change of pace from the usual 6am flights I have been taking. I decided to not find out the total length of out flights for fear of freaking myself out. Yeah, as we boarded our flight from Houston (a 2 1/2 hour flight from Raleigh) they announced we should all settle in for a nice 7 hour flight to Anchorage. Yikes, I have flown to Europe in less time. Luckily I was equipped with a book, a loaded iPod, food (they fed us 2 full meals on out Continental flight), and 2 strong bloody mary’s from the Houston bar…I was set. Though the flight was far from horrible, I was happy to get off and stretch my legs. However there was a short 30 minutes flight left in one of those 20 seater puddle jumpers. I thought it was going to be terrible but by that point I was completely tired, hungry and wanted to be in a bed. That, unfortunately, was still hours away. Once we met Scottie’s parents at the airport in Kenai we had to get our fishing licenses then drive to Homer where we would check into our hotel and sleep for mere hours before we had to get up early to catch our halibut fishing charter.
Sleep felt so good but the amount was a tease, I looked outside and it looked much the same as when I went to bed at midnight, which was weird. I put on layers of clothes not knowing what the weather woudl be like out in the water, grabbed some gourmet bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits a la McD’s (I know, I hung my head in shame) and went for the water. We met our Captain on the Sweet T, fitting I thought, got a quick run down of the boat and we were off to catch the big ones. The weather was absolutely perfect, the sun was out and it was warm (in terms of Alaska warm) and there was a slight breeze.
I was the first to get a bite and boy was that sucker hard to reel in. I thought I had pulled in the motherload but by the time I got it up (5 minutes later with the help form Scottie) the fish was only about 15 lbs. I didn’t care, it was my first and I was keeping it. Each person is only allowed to bring in 2 halibut per day so you run the risk of not getting any if you throw out the small ones. But we were lucky in that the fish where definitely biting and with the weather so nice enjoyed every minute out there. After we caught our limit we headed back to shore (I got to drive for a while) and unloaded our catch to be hung out for pictures and weighting before being packed for shipping. We grabbed dinner before making our way to Soldontna where we would spend the next 3 days fishing for salmon.
