Fish Pirate's Daughter & Fishing Trip 7.25.09

What a great weekend! If you look into coming to Ketchikan, one thing you will see as a ‘must-do’ is attend the play, The Fish Pirate’s Daughter.



It’s a musical melodrama and this year was it’s 43rd year of ‘rollin’ em in the aisles’. The ‘home grown’ production was written by a local playwright and music by a local composer, is performed by locals, and tells some of the spicier history of Ketchikan’s zesty past. During the heyday of the huge salmon catches, Ketchikan also had the distinction of having a large contingent of ‘ladies on the line’ who were more than willing to entertain the hard working, hard drinking fisherman along a stream running through town aptly named ‘Creek Street’. Because this creek was also a salmon spawning ground the location has been called ‘the only place in the world where salmon and men go upstream at the same time to do the same thing!’ The past era was also a time when the hated fish trap was in use, which, of course, gave rise to a villainous canner owner and trap robber, Kurt Van Ohlsun (the villain). Also in the play was Little Nell, a sweet beautiful heroine with tossing curls and true devotion to the hero, Sweet William Uprightly, the high principled Commissioner of Fish. Of course there was also Creek Street’s notorious madam, Violet LaRosa, The play was hilarious – we booed, hissed, hip-hip-horayed, awwwwww…ed, whistled, & woohooed all evening long. It didn’t disappoint in the least bit. There were lots of fun songs, including one called “Motherhood gets in the way of being a Madam”…haha! I shot a video of the ‘working ladies’ singing a quick song.



Oh! And the 2nd best part of it was that it was dinner theatre! All you can eat Dungeness crab with all the fixins. Woohoo! What started out looking like this….



ended up like this at the end of the evening!



We were seated at a table for 10 and got to meet some wonderful folks, had great conversation, saw lots of folks we know, had a spectacular dinner and a show! Not bad for a Friday night… :-)

Saturday was that much better though. We were scheduled to work on Saturday but got an unexpected day off so we called up one of our co-workers at the Duck tour, Larry, and asked if he was going fishing! Turns out….he was. We met at 7am at The Narrows restaurant (no use starting on an empty stomach!) and after a hearty breakfast, jumped on Rowdy’s boat (a good friend of Larry’s).



We had a group of 6 – Rowdy the boat owner, Larry and his Dad, Paul (another Duck employee), and myself and Michael. The day started out a little gray & overcast but quickly gave way to a beautiful sunny day out on the water.



We fished at several spots, fishing for salmon, rockfish, & halibut. And we caught some nice ones! Four or 5 Silver Salmon, about the same number of Pink Salmon, two rock fish and one halibut.



It was great! It was even sunny enough to give us all a nice pink shine, something I haven’t seen since leaving Mexico – a sunburn!

We used Rowdy’s fishing poles and all of his gear as he is a fishing guide out here for the summer. The group of guys were a hoot, you could tell they liked each other by the way they were constantly tormenting each other. Michael was well liked as before we were half way through the day he had fixed a couple of problems on the boat – being boat electrician (his favorite!), gear maintenance, switch switcher, & anchor puller (deckhand).



Me? I just reeled in the fish! The men hollered out instructions - Tips up!, keep reeling!, faster!, bring him to the step!, and finally...Good job! As soon someone yelled ‘Fish On!” a pole was sent my way where I would reel in the fish. I lost several, I’m not ashamed to tell you (it was my first day!), as those smart fish would jump up out of the water or roll around on the surface and release themselves. Oh well!



Even with the special ingredient (Ewww...I don't even want to know what it's made of...)



we only managed to find one halibut though there were promises of going out another day and trying other 'secret' spots. We still ended up with 11 fish, some blisters, a sunburn, & great memories of such a wonderful day.

Back to work tomorrow!
Rene

Is July almost over?! 7.24.09

Where to start?! :-) I need to give a shout out to the FedEx gal in Palm Springs – I’m so sorry I’ve not written sooner!! Thanks for hanging in there with us and checking often. Doug says wonderful things about you and we super appreciate all of the nice comments! We’ve been so super busy working over the past couple weeks I haven’t had a moment or desire to write. But not because nothing has been going on.

We’ve been busy with our tours and it’s always amazing how different they are! Michael was asked to give a tour to the Shore Excursion desk staff off of one of the cruise ships so he had a group of 5 Shore-Ex’s on one tour. Talk about pressure, but he is a natural salesman (read schmoozer) and they were so lucky – they had a wonderful day with Michael (6 hours!) and were able to see a lot of what Ketchikan has to offer not to mention some bears, eagles, starfish, you name it. Everyone raved about the tour and the Shore Ex manager said to him when he was getting back on the ship ‘we’ll see how good my staff is as we come back into port on Saturday’. And when Saturday came, they had sold 3 Hummers! Woohoo! That’s when it really got interesting. Michael told me as I checked in with the Shore Ex that they were sending a videographer from the ship with us on our tour! So I had a group of 4 and one videographer that took videos & photos of the tour to use as on-board advertising for the Hummer tour. Cool! That was a very difficult tour too – they spoke only Spanish and I had difficulty talking for 4 hours in Spanish. PLUS it was with two kids under 5yrs old! But we had fun, we saw a ton of the sights, picked lots of Salmonberries, huckleberries, & blueberries. Whew!

Speaking of Salmonberries, I attempted batch #1 and 2 of Salmonberry jam with success! Michael and I hiked up Slide Mountain, home-made berry containers in hand (we used rinsed out juice containers), and picked until all of the containers were full. I was not sure how many berries we needed so we just picked and picked. Well, really it went like one for the container, one for me! We were gorging ourselves on fresh salmonberries all the way up and back down. They’re really tasty – I like the orange ones myself as I think they have a smoother, almost citrus’y flavor. Michael is fond of the blood-red ones which are rare to find.




We went picking on a day it was nice & sunny and a little warm! Of course we were listening hard to make sure we didn’t startle some bears too. No problem though. We brought all of our goodies back and I started making the jam from a recipe I found on the package of pectin. It calls for 5 cups of juice so the first thing I had to do was smash all of the berries. I bought a potato smasher and found that worked pretty well, then I would pour everything into a strainer that I found in the store that is special for straining the seeds for jelly. It’s kind of like a thick and stretchy cheesecloth and it works well.



I debated making jelly vs jam and decided to make a combination – I only used a little over one cup of seeds and the rest just juice so it wouldn’t be too seedy. Then it was time to make the jelly! Here’s the recipe I used:

Salmonberry Jam

5 cups Salmonberries. (I used 4 cups of juice and one cup of whole smashed salmonberries so as not to have a tremendous amount of seeds)
5 cups sugar
1 box pectin

Smash the salmonberries with a potato masher and strain juice. Use 1-2 cups of whole, smashed salmonberries if preferred. Put salmonberry mixture in a large pan and stir in the box of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring often, that does not stop when you stir it. Add the sugar, mixing it into the salmonberry mixture, and bring the mixture to another rolling boil that does not stop. Once it is boiling, cook for 1 minute, stirring often. Pour the mixture into jar. Place the jars a large stock pot, off of the bottom, and cover the jars with 1-2” of boiling water. Bring the pot to a mellow boil and boil for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and let sit for 2 days. Enjoy!

It worked! I have salmonberry jam to share now. Want to try some? Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get one out to you! My next attempt is at Elderberry jam. I’ve searched and searched for recipes to use and have a couple different ones to try. Elderberry is poisonous if you don’t cook it right so I have to be careful! :-) After that, the blueberry will be ready, the huckleberry, and the thimbleberry! Woohoo! I can’t wait to try them all out.

We’ve been blessed with some fabulous people on our tours. Michael has had an acting coach who works with Cameron Diaz & other actors, a famous Mexican singer, Electrical contractors, Mom & 17yr old son, newly engaged folks from Florida and I’ve had some interesting folks as well – folks on a Christian cruise, 5 widower ladies from PA, Scotland, Spain, New York, even Kansas whew!! I’m constantly amazed at how nice everyone is. Today, Michael’s tour brought him a whole bag full of fruits because they somehow learned how expensive fruits & veggies are. How nice?! I have had offers to send me ‘care packages’ with goodies that we can’t find here, have met some amazing people who are e-mailing me photos and sending me DVD’s of their trip, folks treating me to lunch, etc. How lucky we are to be in such a wonderful place and get to meet such wonderful people. And get PAID! :-)

We’ve had some excitement too. We had the day last Tuesday off and were looking forward to sleeping in. You see, our tours usually start around 8am, some earlier. So for an 8am tour, we have to be on the docks waiting at 7:30. But we have to go to the barn 30 minutes before that as we have to get our picnic ‘baskets’ ready which have crackers, cheese, grapes, smoked salmon dip and refreshments of their choice ready and get our Hummers all ready to go. That means we have to leave the boat around 6:45, and we both have to get ready….in a boat….with one shower….one small mirror…. You get the picture. It’s early mornings. So to get back to the story, we were looking forward to sleeping in on our day off. We have two open slips next to us where transient boats dock, usually for a day or two, while they’re in port. We’ve met some incredibly nice people who have been there for a day or two. So we’re sleeping in when we hear the boat engines next door fire up. No problem, we hear boats coming & going every morning. This one revs his engines and we hear movement. Then we hear a lady screaming “no, No, NO, REVERSE! RAYMOND REVERSE!!” and a second later CRASH!!! Oh no. Right at the front of the boat, right where we’re sleeping. The lady was screaming and the man was screaming right back at her. Michael and I race out to find a fishing boat all tangled up on the anchor on our boat. Michael was so incredibly kind, telling the man calmly to reverse, reverse, reverse, wait, wait, let me get it untangled, OK, I’ll push you out into the channel, keep going in reverse. OK, you’re clear. The man leans out and says “SOR-RY” which is still hilarious. Grumble…. We went back inside and looked at the clock….5:45. Aw, Man! So much for sleeping in. No major damage either, just some scratches and chips, nothing a little sanding won’t fix. Our neighbor figures the man work up one morning and said "I wanna be a fishing boat captain!". haha!!!

Then just a couple days ago, I was upstairs at the Hummer shop making the baskets. We have to boil water & make coffee for the clients and I had them both going as I was inside the refrigerator grabbing sodas. I heard a noise and turned around and FIRE! The burner under the kettle on the stove was on fire. Seems there was some grease or something under the burner. So all of my training kicked in. OK, it’s a grease fire, don’t put water on it. You must smother it. What can I throw on it?! Finally I found a towel and threw it on it. Of course it smoked up and set the fire alarm off. The owner was downstairs and I yelled “I have a fire up here!” but he thought I said “Fire drill” as a joke so he went over and was trying to shut the alarm off. Meanwhile upstairs I pulled off the towel and poof, it started back up again. I searched around for a fire extinguisher but couldn’t locate one so I placed the towel over it again and was working at looking for another towel so I could wet it. After a few more seconds I pulled the towel back off and the fire was out, whew. My adrenaline was really high and I was still freaking out a bit. The owner started upstairs and asked me if there was any smoke up there as he couldn’t get the alarm to go off! I answered, Yep! I had a fire but got it put out. He laughed when he realized there really WAS a fire but then felt horrible as he didn’t help me! He opened up some windows to get the smoke out and then got a call from the alarm company – they had dispatched the fire department because of the alarm. Meanwhile, at the Ketchikan Visitor’s Bureau, our manager, Tina, called John asking if the building was on fire as she had a volunteer fire fighter in the building who heard the call on the radio! Boy, word sure does travel fast in a small town! The fire department got there and thankfully, John spoke to them as I was still trying to get ready for a Hummer tour! It was crazy. Just a little excitement to our day! Haha… Oh, and that fire extinguisher I couldn’t locate? Mounted at eye level just beside the door. Yep! I don’t know how on earth I missed it!

We’ve been seeing more bears, almost daily, as well as eagles & salmon swimming upstream to spawn.





It’s really quite a spectacular place. There was about 9 days of sunshine last week which was incredibly nice & warm and this week it has been cooler & raining for about 5 days. But next week is supposed to be sunny again. I can handle this weather!

I have been helping out in the office at work, trying my best to help out whenever possible. Michael has been working ‘sales’ on the dock, standing in booths getting folks to purchase tickets to the ‘Ducks’. He has an uncanny natural ability to get sales, earning the reputation of a ‘hell of a salesman’. Ice to Eskimos I’ve always said!

We take any days (non-rainy of course) and explore the nature trails around town. We found a wonderful hike up to Carlanna Lake the other day which is a nice butt-busting hike for about 10 minutes that opens up onto a spectacular lake with a trail that meandors around it.



The trail takes you right up into the rainforest, with trees, shrubs, berries, ferns, mosses & lichens, wildlife, & insects all around.



With such a small island, there sure is a lot of hiking opportunities here. It doesn't take long to get 'off the beaten path' and out into nature. I've uploaded a bunch more photos and my mom loaned me her super nice camera so I should be able to get much better photos now too. How nice of my folks - I called and told them how amazingly beautiful it is up here and my photos just don't do it justice and asked if they had an older camera kicking around that I could borrow and they DID! Woohoo! I am so spoiled... :-) I love you Mom & Dad! So as soon as we get a day off of work (haha!) we're going to work on those photos...

So what else? We haven’t made it fishing yet but we should find a nice day next week for that. I guess that’s it for right now….I will certainly have more later!

More to follow…
Rene

The bears are out! 7.8.09

It has happened slowly….but each day it seems we have more chance of seeing bears. Michael has spotted them several times. I have only spotted them twice. But each time it’s more spectacular than before.

Michael had a funny story the other day. He had just dropped me off to get my hair cut & was walking to the chiropractor. He was right in the downtown district and was walking up one of the main streets. A ‘Duck tour’ bus had just stopped at the stop sign and then braked a 2nd time, causing Michael to wonder who had jumped out in front of them. In his peripheral vision, he saw a large black dog running down the street just ahead of him, about 40-50ft. Then he noticed that all of the people on the Duck Bus got up with cameras in hand! He looked ahead of him and that big black dog turned out to be a bear!! It was running at full bore, right at him. He zigged out of his way and the bear took a right hand turn at the corner, around a building, and into a wooded area. Whew! That was a close one! It was even written up in the local newspaper the following day, what a rare sighting! Then another day he was walking one of the hiking trails with his tour when one of them said ‘Is that a bear?’ Michael looked ahead of him and saw a big black hind-end and said ‘Yep!’ It was just walking along on the trail! He’s even seen them crossing the road as he is driving along.

Well, it was my turn to see them. On the 4th of July, me and my group headed out to Herring cove where you can sometimes see them and there were two of them, trudging through the water, trying their best to catch dinner! It was awesome to watch! We even saw one of the bears catch a salmon, it was moving around in its mouth. It was way cool. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me....DOH! But they are out & about and it’s pretty darn exciting when we see them!

Both Michael and I spotted them today, with both cameras in hand! Here's my video and Michael's is second. Too fun!!!





More to follow…
Rene

More photos in the photo album! 7.6.09

I forget to remind you - there are all kinds of photos that I don't post in the blog in the recently uploaded photos. Click here to go there.

Enjoy!!
Rene

Another small town 4th of July 7.5.09

Ketchikan is such a fantastic place. It's hard to describe the feeling of only being here a couple of months and walking down the street waving to many people driving by. Or just the joy of enjoying seeing the families having fun in town. No violence, just good clean fun. The 4th of July was so much fun.

It started out by me having to work! DOH!!! I had volunteered for the shift as it was scheduled for 1pm, which would have allowed me to watch the parade. You all know how much I love a parade! :-) But I got a phone call around 6:45am by Tina telling me the time was changed to 11:00. DAMN! Oh well. I put Michael in charge of the camera as he was also working, though he didn't have a tour, he was helping on the docks with Duck ticket sales so the parade had to pass right by him. I had to park about 3 blocks from where I picked up my clients as the parade was right through town and we had to get on the opposite side of the main street to be able to leave town. I met my clients early and we jammed out to the North side of town to begin the tour. We had a spectacular day. Some clients are just so much easier to be with than others and this was one such group. Very fun, friendly, & were enjoying everywhere we went. We headed to some of my favorite haunts - Potlach park where you can see a totem pole being carved up close, sometimes even meeting the carver, has a spectacula clan house, and an antique car & firearm museum, up to Slide Mountain - a spot we can drive up 1000ft for spectacular views and a picnic, the Ward Creek trail, a lovely hike through the rainforest and out onto a viewing platform where sometimes we can see fish, then out to the South end of town where we went to Herring Cove. Now Herring Cove can be a hotspot at times and dead other times! Right now the King Salmon are swimming upstream to spawn so if we're lucky we can see them in the water just below us. Because the salmon are in the area, there are usually several eagles in the area as well, and even better - Bears! Today we were incredibly lucky. Not only were the King Salmon swimming all around, even jumping out of the water, there were two bears that were fishing! We even watched as one ran through the water and caught one in his mouth! It was awesome. And remember how I told you I gave Michael the camera?! Yep, you guessed it - I didn't have a camera to take any photos! Oh well...I'm sure I'll see it again. It is so incredible to see though! The fish are HUGE!! And the eagles are all up in the trees, all along the water, and flying around.

Once I got my folks back to their ship, it was my turn to take in the 4th of July events! We ran the Hummer up to the barn, parked our vehicle at the boat and walked back downtown. We made it just in time for the Annual Rotary rubber ducky race. You purchase a rubber duck for $10 and they drop them into the creek, letting them flow all the way down the creek, through the eddies, rapids, & rocks, and then into the marina where they have a funnel setup and 'catch' the winning ducks as it crosses the finish line. It starts off fast - the colorful little ducks (yellow, pink & blue) are cruising down the rapids along the rocks



and then it opens up into the marina so the ducks were just meandoring to the finish line.



People lined the entire route on both sides of the creek from where they were dropped in all the way to the finish line (the bridge). It was being broadcast 'live' with play by plays by members of the Rotary. It was too cute!

Oh, and I forgot all about the FREE rootbeer floats!



We then headed over to the Lumberjack show as they were having a competition that was aired on National TV called the Ironjack competition. There were 8 competitors and they competed in 6 events - pole climbing (up and down 50ft), boom running (running across logs in the water), axe throwing, an event I forget the name but it was a relay where they had to complete 3-4 items and finish, single saw blade, and single axe chop. It was incredible! It was also FREE so the place was packed with folks. They were serving beer & hotdogs or sodas and everyone had a great time! Those competitors are just incredible...I would not make it! haha...

We walked around all of the booths in town, checked out some of the live music going on, and walked back to the boat. Afterall, it was about 9pm, still light outside, and there were fireworks to watch at 11pm!! Yep, that's not a typo - it doesn't begin to get dark until after 10pm so the fireworks went off at 11 and they were superb. Fun shapes, all colors & varieties. And we could watch from the boat.

Michael got to see the parade, but the battery failed on the camera so there are only a couple of photos. He said there were lots of floats and the parade lasted almost 2 hours. They had floats for the 1969, 79, 89, & 99 graduating classes, every organization you can imagine, and lots of spirit! Before the 'main' parade, the Kiddie parade started which was also a hit.



The cruise ship passengers could stay in their cabin and watch from the dock!



There were lots of other things going on during the day - a car show, pie sale, activities for the kids, booths, etc.

OH, and I forgot to tell you the BEST part! It was SUNNY! And in the upper 70's, an absolutely stunning day. The locals say it's the only 4th it hasn't been cold or raining (last year it was storming) for the past 6 years! So you can bet everyone was out having fun. Lots of boats out & about. I don't think it could have been any better. You'll remember last year we spent the day in a small town in California - they are the place to go!

I hope you all had as wonderful of a 4th as we did. We miss everyone a ton!

We also had a visit from a friend of ours who arrived on a cruise ship the day before. Jerry Behrens, Scott's dad (Scott & Liz who live in Nicaragua) and step-mom were up traveling through Alaska and looked us up when they arrived. We got to meet up with Jerry and have a couple beers. It was great seeing him again and is always nice to see a familiar face!



More to follow...
Rene

We've been seeing a HUGE man-o-war jellyfish in the marina lately so I couldn't help but snap a photo of him. I wouldn't want to tangle with him!