Sunday was the annual Girl Scouts Songs & S'mores event at Sandy Beach. Always fun. Camp songs. Campfire. S'mores. You get the idea. This year, some of the girls elected to go with some troop leaders on a hike. Cora did. And came back to tell us all about the octopus she found washed up on the beach. Highlight of the afternoon for Cora; she couldn't wait to tell us about how big the suckers were, the three hearts it has and the "delightful" aroma. She led Addy and I back to check it out again with her.
If you ask me what September and October are like in Juneau, I'd say grey and raining, all the time, every day. But not this year. This has been the most glorious Juneau fall.
We went to our friends' home on Saturday and got to explore the beautiful Douglas Island woods, taking a trail that starts out of their backyard.
At times, it required a little bit of bushwhacking..
...but with the late afternoon sun streaming through the trees and the subtle changes in colors of the moss and ferns, it was easy to want to keep pressing on.
Some of us stayed firmly planted on the ground, exploring the underside of a fallen tree,
others (namely, Cora) climbed up to get a view from a higher vantage point.
The trail went up quite a ways and then led out to a beautiful muskeg, which again the afternoon sunlight just seemed to make glow.
We don't have moose in Juneau. Or we didn't have moose in Juneau. We heard stories of a small herd of moose who lived well out of the road. Now we hear stories of moose spottings off Back Loop Road, near the area of the glacier. We took a leisurely family hike on West Glacier Trail on Sunday afternoon and saw the tracks ourselves; the moose are here. And their footprint is enormous!
The girls animal sense elevated also found some old signs of beaver activity.
And our own animal made lots of tracks of her own, splashing though Mendenhall Lake and the forest.
We also got to play, or if you're Cora turn into a popsicle and eat, with the first ice of the season.
The number of things that lined up to make this trip work out is quite staggering, but we're oh so glad it did.
Mai tai's, appetizers, sunset and hula music on our first evening, at the House Without A Key bar in Waikiki.
Morning hike of Dimond Head. You start from inside the crater and make your way up to the top where there are bunkers and military installations left from O'ahu's coastal defense system.
You can tell we're not used to this climate - between the sun and the 80 degree temp, we were dripping with sweat. Thank goodness a shower rolled in shortly after so we blended in with the crowd.
An afternoon at Lanikai Beach
And we even pulled off the surprise of the century by rendezvous-ing with my parents during their vacation to Hawaii. Working secretly with my Dad, I managed to sneak up behind Mom in the ABC store and oh my, was she caught off guard :)
Sunset at Waikiki Beach, and our getaway. Until next time, Hawaii...
We did it. Our first overnight boating adventure. And while it did not go entirely smoothly, the quiet family time together is something I'll remember and treasure.
We set out midway through the afternoon with a plan to leisurely make our way as close to Hoonah as we could that day, looking for a quite cove to anchor for the night. There's something mesmerizing to me about just looking out at the beautiful views and watching our wake roll out into the waters beyond.
We are so incredibly spoiled by the wildlife here in Southeast Alaska that we've gotten to the point where we expect to see at least one humpback whale when we head out on the boat. It's never less of a thrill, though. On this particular trip, we saw orcas, which immediately brings excitement to both the kids and grown-ups. To see nearly a dozen traveling together was just absolutely stunning. Graham brought us up ahead of the whales, turned off the engine and just let them swim toward and around us.
Sunset
And a quiet cove
We went into this not knowing how the girls would do being on the boat overnight. A 20' C-dory only has so much space. And you only have what you brought on board with you. But in talking about our trip afterward, the evening and overnight were the girls favorite part of the whole trip. Specifically, being in their pajamas and doing some evening fishing under the supervision of a curious seal.
We can gladly report that the girls slept soundly though the night. The same cannot be said of the grown-ups but we'll chalk it up to learning some good lessons about picking a spot to anchor that isn't subject to winds or waves from the incoming/receding tides.
The next morning, we set out to Hoonah, a small Tlingit village. Our first stop, the hardware store for oil for the boat engine. No first extended boat trip is complete without engine trouble, right? At least that's what I'm telling myself. There was no better way to illustrate just how small the village of Hoonah is then through having engine trouble. The only hardware store gave a recommendation of a boat mechanic, who happened to be at the only dock in town parked in the boat ahead of us, who happened to know about three people we know in Juneau...and so on and so on.
Girls were jealous that Dad got to walk up the huge ramp to the hardware store so they had to do it themselves. Found some pallets from the latest soft drink delivery :)
We spent our day wandering around Hoonah. Small enough to walk pretty much the entire town portion of the village. Girls played with a group of about 8 kids who claimed to be the entire 6th grade class.
And then headed very slowly home.
***
Totally unrelated to our trip, but our first visual of Hoonah came from this youtube video, which propelled this local fisherman to Southeast Alaska fame as his dance video went viral last winter. Going back and watching the video, we could see the exact spot where we docked our boat on this trip. If you watch the video, make sure you see around minute 3 where he totally wipes out in the slushy snow :)
An estimated 10,000-16,000 pounds of chum salmon spread across Egan Highway, the only road between downtown (where many people work) and the valley (where many people live) caused quite the traffic jam. #Juneau problems quickly became last night's local hashtag.
More pictures: http://www.ktoo.org/2016/07/25/overturned-truck-blocks-egan-load-fish/
So there I was....in about 300 feet of water, not another boat in sight. I am sworn to secrecy about precisely where we caught these fish, because, no kidding, Trevor and I both hooked within five minutes of each other and only about fifteen minutes after we put our lines in the water.
Here is my halibut, the one you see laying in the bow of Trevor's boat at the end of the video above. It weighed about 35 pounds....more than all of the rest of the fish I had caught in my lifetime put together.
Now, I am told by fishermen who know, a 35 pounder is something to be proud of, and I was quite pleased with my catch. But fifteen minutes of hand-cramping reeling, a broken halibut rod, and a team effort of pulling into the boat later, and all of a sudden my 35 lb. leviathan looked like a minnow.
This beast weighed in at around 120 pounds.
It was quite an ordeal lowering it out of the boat, but not nearly as tough as getting it into the boat.
For reference, that is the largest wheelbarrow Home Depot sells.
The whole family got in on sizing the fish up....
Checking it out up close.......
And cleaning it in the driveway.
Trevor had a lot more work to do than me.
The kids even got an ichthyological anatomy lesson out of it. That's me, pretending I can tell the difference between fish intestines and sausage links. The girls had previously met some college students doing a summer study on halibut stomach contents at the boat ramp, so they wanted me to cut in and find out what was in there. I quickly changed the subject.
My mom kindly gave up her freezer to store all of the vacuum-packed halibut. I took some in to work and some will be going to the Glory Hole (our local homeless shelter, where Trevor works) but the rest is just waiting for you readers to come up and enjoy with us! Jenn has an amazing recipe with pesto and bread crumbs. You'll love it.
