Today's A Special Day

Today is Judy and my 23rd wedding anniversary. We're going to celebrate by driving down to Seward and going out to dinner. After having two beautifully sunny days in the high 60's, today it's cloudy again and the weather man says it's going to rain. It sure looks like he may he right. Both chalets have guests. 8 people just arrived for Stellar Jay last night for a 5 day stay. They are planning on spending at least one day in Homer to go Halibut fishing on one of the charter boats. The group from Vermont, in Wild Rose, will be leaving on Tuesday morning and another group coming in. They have been here for 11 days and have been touring the area and loving it. They went on a fly in fishing trip yesterday and had a tremendous time - saw all types of wild life. The next week has people scheduled in both Chalets and then reservations start to slow down. Gary put some additional signs up out on the highway hoping to attract some overnighters heading to Seward for the big Silver Salmon fishing Derby scheduled for the last two weeks of August.
Last Thursday we took a ride to Kasilof, which is on the Sterling Highway past Soldotna on the way to Homer, to see a commercial fishing operation run by Dawnee and Dave Watson along with their kid, grand kids and other crew members. Dawnee is the daughter of Howard and Allene Miller who we met last winter while staying at Superstition Lookout RV Resort. They own 5 acres of land right on Cook Inlet where they live and have a commercial set net fishing business. It was really interesting and Dawnee gave a us a tour and explained everything to us. She got a big kick out of us thinking they had a dock where they parked the boats and worked out of. She called us "rookies". They do "set net" fishing right off the beach. They set their nets and pull them in according to when the tide comes in and goes out. They also are regulated by the Alaska Fish and Wildlife department who tells them on a daily basis when they can fish. After they pull the nets into the boats and recover the fish, they bring them up the hill and put them in big bins of ice and then they're picked up once or twice daily by their buyer and taken to the processing plant.
The picture here is of Mt Redoubt which is an active volcano across Cook Inlet from them that has erupted a few times in the last six months. If you click on the picture to enlarge it and look real close just to the left of center, you can see the snow covered Redoubt and to it's right is a plum of steam coming up. Scientists predict it could erupt again in the near future. It was really neat to finally be ably to meet Dawnee and see how some REAL Alaskans live. Their "compound" for a better word, includes their main house, a cook house, cabins, a shop, an area for weighing the fish and storing them until they are picked up. It is truly a family business. We met their children, son in laws, grand children and other members of the team. We were invited to the "cook house" where Dawnee prepares meals for everyone daily. She cooks for 10 - 20 people every day. We had a delicious lunch and enjoyed learning about their business. We appreciated them taking the time out of their busy schedules to show us "rookies" what is involved in set net fishing.