July 4 Round Up

At long last here are pictures from the weekend of the fourth. We headed out to Elfin Cove and Pelican for the festivities and fishing, and also to the outer coast (aka "Big Wide Open Ocean") for some beach combing. It was a gorgeous, perfect day for cruising as Gwen demonstrates here... sunny, warm, hardly any chop.... And then there were whales.

I've had some queries about the sheer number of these huge creatures that we saw that day. I'd guess we were looking at 80 to 90 of them. Some were miles away and some were right next to the boat. It was beautiful and kinda scary at the same time.

This guy was pretty close to us for a while. He was a big solo humpback and we just called him a him because he seemed so huge. I think the males are larger than the females, but I could be wrong. (Yes, really, it does happen sometimes.)The coveted "fluke" photo. It took me forever to get one; my camera was not at its best that day.Greg's mom Linda took some great shots and sent them to us on CD. I haven't included any of them here, but I'll check and see if I can post the best ones. She got some fantastic close-ups of flukes with water dripping and glistening off them.

I think this is one of the mom and baby we saw. We could hear them "talking" each time the surfaced together. That was truly amazing. Whale songs are so eerie and unusual.After about 45 minutes, we had to say farewell to the whales, their songs, and antics. We were hoping to find some of the beautiful glass balls that the Japanese fishing boats use as floats for their nets, so we needed to get out to the coast and see what the weather was up to.

Unfortunately, the water was too rough to put in to the beach on the outside so we found a different, inland beach at the northern end of Lizianski Inlet and tromped around there with Greg's mom and the girls. We got there pretty close to low tide and were able to explore quite a bit. Not a lot to find there due to the lack of people to discard stuff to find, y'know? The girls found a rock formation they called "Sink Rock" because it had two little divots (not the correct geological term, I'm sure... maybe someone knows?) that they could rinse their sandy paws off in before snacking us out of house and boat. Man, give those gals some fresh sea air and they will not stop eating .... I'm already setting some extra cash aside for the teen years' food bill. No, I'm not really, but I probably should be.Greg looked over the area with his big iron as per the usual.The girls and I found a great spot for rock-throwing. This little creek didn't have any fish at the time we were there, but it looked like it was big enough to be anadromous. (That's the five dollar "Alaska" word of the day!) Boo Boo is a southpaw and she could just fling rocks all day. She tries so hard to get each one to land smack in the water and make the telltale splash. If she throws one too short, she says "No!" and shakes her head. She can't end on a "bad" throw either. Once we say, "OK, one more throw, then we have to get back to the boat," she interprets that as one more "good" throw. So we all have to pay attention then to notice a good throw and make the call that we really have to go...Greg taxied us all back and forth on the raft. Gwen and Grandma went first. In fact here they are just getting to the boat on the way out. Then Greg paddled back to get Boo and I last, while I emptied the ammo from the rifle and kept scanning for bears.

Whew- all that and we haven't even got to Pelican yet... come back soon. It'll be worth it!