Our first boat outing

At the toll booth out side Whittier, AK

Eric, our rig and our new boat!

A beautiful day in Alaska!

Waiting in line to go through the tunnel to Whittier.

Eric did not have to twist my arm for this thing. Talk about living the Alaskan dream. We bought a 21 foot Hewscraft boat, and couldn't be more excited. Everyone here has a boat and/or motor home. We hooked up our boat to the truck, and headed for the port town of Whittier. It was a beautiful day. Whittier is about 60 miles south of Anchorage and is at then end of a long tunnel. The tunnel is only one lane, so everyone must wait until traffic flows in your direction.

We unloaded out boat at Whittier, and I waited until Eric parked the truck. Whittier is filled with serious fishermen, and I was a bit nervous. I noticed that the boat looked kind of funny in the water, but thought nothing of it. I got in after about 10 minutes or so, and realized the boat was filled with water!!!!! We quickly tried to get the boat out, and were totally embarrassed. Eric had not put the boat plugs in, and it filled with water! We were very upset with ourselves, and went home. We are now the joke of our friends! Great........

Salmon Fishing

This is the dip net.

Eric trying his hand at dip netting at the mouth of the Kenai River.

Karen displaying her fillet of red salmon. Eric catches them, and I cut em!

Eric is fishing for silvers in Bird Creek, about 20 miles south of Anchorage.

Here are some picures of our fishing adventures. Eric and I went to Bird Creek to fish for silvers. There were lots of people out, as well as brown bears. The brown bears hang out just up the creek, but usually stay away from the fishermen.

There is a technique to fishing, and we were trying to learn as much as we could. One guy helped us learn how to correctly cast among so many fishermen, so that was helpful. He was getting a bit cocky though, as he "caught" a young girl in the ear. Not many girls are out on the creek, so I was talking to another female fisherman, and as we chatted, the guy's hook caught her right in the ear! She ended up going to the ER to get the hook removed. I've heard that the ER is full of people with hooks stuck in various body parts during the summer months!

We then headed down to Kenai to try dip netting. This is only for Alaska Residents. You take a large dip net to the mouth of the Kenai, and scoop reds out of the water. It was a blast. A family is allowed 50 fish per year. The beach had thousands of fish heads along the shore. This is one of the largest salmon runs in Alaska. More than 1 million fish swim through those waters during the summer. It's amazing!

It took Eric an hour or so to get the hang of dip netting, but once he got it down, he was nailing them. We ended up with a cooler full of fresh salmon. YUM! Thousands of people set up "fish camp" along the shores. The dip netting season is very short, so people camp out. We had a great time, and can't wait to do it again next summer.