Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Shrimp Pots Take 2

So I guess we have some learning to do on this whole shrimp pot sport. Not sure if it's actually a sport but the fact that no shrimp have decided to crawl into our pots, where we have left them a scrumptious meal of salmon cat food mixed with cut up herring, is not very sporting of them. Haha We did however have a couple of starfish and one small crab decided they liked the smell and climbed right in, then couldn't get out. We decided to drop 2 pots on Super bowl Sunday and since the marina had defrosted today, we went and fetched them. They also were empty except for a star fish, but it's nice to have all pots in before it snows again. It is so awesome to get up in the morning, go for a nice walk through Totem park, see that the marina is not an ice skating rink, hop on the boat,
go fetch your pots and be back home by noonish to make lunch before Michael has to go to work. Someone asked my sister, why did your sister move to Alaska? I told her to give him my blog address. Duh......................

So the shrimp pots will rest for a couple of weeks and then we will try again. Have been getting some advice from other anglers so maybe we will have better luck next time. Still a beautiful day in Sitka! Can't complain about that!

Frozen in the Marina!

To thin to ice skate. haha

scooting slowly through it

Cubes of ice sitting on top as we go through it

M
First pot- Sun star, star fish

Dumped it out on the engine cover,  Bottoms up! uh ugly!

This one not so ugly, still weird looking though!

Our itsy bitsy crab

Love, love, love the electric pot puller ! Oh and the cute guy too !


No shrimp, but look how cute I look!

Heading home

This was stuck on the star fish. Empty. Came home for my shell collection.

I just can't get enough of this place ! Even better with a boat !

Hummm, why do we love living here ? Gee, I don't know.............Duh..............

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

1st attempt at shrimp pots

So we have the boat now, so in order to save yourselves lots of money at the sea food store you rig up shrimp pots and go out and set them  any where from 250 to 400 feet out in the Ocean. First you have to get the ropes and pots all set to be dropped into the abyss of the ocean. I have kind of learned how to make "eye loop rope ends" as my sore fingers will contest to. This is not an easy task I found out, and they may not look like the YouTube video I watched over and over, but I guaranteed Michael they will not come apart. LOL
 We set ours with bait,  cans of friskies cat food. Salmon flavor, yummy! We set one by "G" island which is not real far from our marina by Mosquito Cove and the other further into The Mosquito Cove area. We set them on Saturday before Michael had to go to work. So now you just let them sit. We went back on Sunday to retrieve all of our shrimp. It was like Christmas, what will be in our pot? We get to our first pot and Michael starts pulling up the pot, by hand....... He pulls in the rope and I am on the other side of the boat neatly, haha wrapping it back into it's bin for next time. Up, up,up comes the pot. 400 feet of rope being pulled from the shrimp refrigerator we call the Ocean. Finally you can see the pot! Our eyes ready to feast on our bounty of shrimp from below! Up, up, up and over the side of the boat..............Not one darn shrimp in our pot!  On to the next pot. Up, up, up comes the rope, over the side of the boat............Nothin...............We reset one pot across from where we set the other one, as there were other buoys, so we thought maybe we would have better luck. Nothin............

We left a pot down for a couple of hours while we went and checked out Nakwasina Sound. I had packed a picnic lunch and it was a beautiful day. The water in the sound was like glass. Halick Island is in the Nakwasina Sound and there is  a Forest service cabin you can rent. $45 per night. We'll be reserving that one sometime. Oh yea, when we went back to the pot later, yea, nothin again except for a small eel of some kind that we threw back. Haha
Came across a school of Whales on our way back and enjoyed seeing a bunch of Sea Lions piled onto a Buoy back in Sitka Sound. Beautiful day, wonderful first time trying for shrimp. We may have gotten skunked this time, but don't worry, we will try again! And it's only January! Oh and by the way, we have an electric pot puller on it's way! Hahaa
You know what "BOAT" stands for right? Bring Out Another Thousand   So true!

Getting ready to throw out our first shrimp pots

Out it goes

This is good, when your buoy is still above water after dropping your pot so you can go back and find it

This is Seamart, where I grocery shop  They need a dock for take out!

Coming in to our marina, Crescent harbor

Crescent Harbor

Nothin.............

Coming into Nakwasina Sound  Looked more like a Lake

Sorry, not such a good photo but you can see my orange rubber pants! Which keep me dry!

The eel

Whale watching!

Whale tail

Sun bathing

It's a party out here! The splash on the left is one bailing as we go by

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

More of our trip to Kauai

Thought some of you might like to see more photos from our Christmas/New Years trip to Hannalei on Kauai. We had such a great time.
Christmas Day  The house was great

Went to a cave

Back of the cave

Ready to snorkle

He made it!

Bathing beauty!

Body surfing, uh huh...............

Waiting for our ride

Blow holes in the rocks was cool!

Sunset in Lehui

Sunset coming

Kickin back at the house in his Hilo Hattie $9.95 shirt!

Out for a hike

Hawaii toes !!!

Boat ride before luau


Smith's Luau was awesome!



The Zoo!

Sushi night, waiting patiently

Yay! Time to eat!

Ahhhh brother/sister