Alaskan At Heart: July 2013

Charter Time!

Woohoo! 5:45 am and time to head to the harbor! Got our snacks, our fishing licenses, our rubber boots, and (importantly) our raingear. Good thing we had it too- I think we encountered just about every kind of rain that day haha...

Leaving the harbor and heading toward the waters off LaTouche Island.
The scenery was beautiful despite the rain- and we got an added bonus of
seeing humpback whales and harbor porpoises!

Fish on!

Vince vs. halibut... and flounder, and cod! Those flounder were major
thieves- and they gave us quite a workout checking our bait! At the start of the
day I was hoping for a monster, but after a few hours of battling flounder and
checking my bait, I was re-thinking my trophy dream... my arms were
getting smoked!! :p

Victory! Vince got one of the best fish of the day :) I got two

'butts as well, and we ended up with a good 30 pounds of yummy fillets- success!

...and a few days later, here's some of our catch: poached halibut

cheeks over an Alfredo risotto- YUM!

Arrival In Whittier

Time for some summer fishing! I had a trip for Vince & I booked since early spring, so we were stoked to finally head to Whittier for some halibut. Not to mention I had heard that the drive to Whittier is amazing- you actually drive through a 2.6 mile long tunnel through a mountain to get there. Very cool...

In line to drive through the tunnel

Getting closer

Around 2 miles in, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel ;)

Made it! Time to find our B&B...

...uh- is this right?

Did we just step into an Alfred Hitchcock movie??

Oh- you just have to go to the 15th floor to check in with

the B&B owner...

Security cam in the elevator...

Almost there... Vince & I finally found June (the owner) who

(thankfully!!!) was super nice and very welcoming. Whew- it was nice to put our

minds at ease after the creepy trip to find the office!!!

Yay- our room

Much warmer on the inside!

The kitchen

Our room

Nice glacier and waterfall views from our living room :)

Time to hit the town...

Whittier is pretty small, so Vince & I decided to walk to the

harbor/downtown area

Which entailed taking the pedestrian walkway through a

culvert tunnel underneath the railroad tracks... was a little eerie

to walk by a solitary guy sitting there reading "Beowulf"...

Found the charter check-in :)

...and a little Coast Guard Auxiliary station

Now for some food! We stopped into Swiftwater Seafood

for some warming clam chowder and fresh caught halibut fish

& chips. Great local atmosphere and friendly service!

Our next stop was the local "museum" (located in a wing of

a hotel/grocery store haha); it was definitely eclectic, but we learned

some really interesting things about the town's history

Very intriguing

Like the Begich Towers (where we stayed), the Buckner Building

was another establishment built for war-related housing- neat! Unfortunately,

the Buckner Building is now in ruins (not to mention foreboding!)

Just about time to get ready for our early-morning fishing trip- after

we got a closer look at one of the gorgeous waterfalls behind our building :)

Valley Trip

Thinking about all the places in Alaska that I haven't really seen, I realized I had never really spent much time in Palmer and Wasilla- two cities in the Matanuska valley. So, I decided to take Vince to the valley and check out a few of the sites...