Just more people,slugs and whales. That's all...or not :)

Alrighty folks!!!  I am just going to just jump right on in!!!  It has been awhile since my last update and that is because it has been a mad house around here!!!

Last Monday Caitlin and I were asked to go and help the guys get some salmon.  Now this was not an ordinary fishing trip.  We were doing subsistence fishing.  Basically, we let out this really long net around a school of salmon and we drove the boat in a really big circle and it caused the salmon's gills to go in the net and they got caught.  So then we had to pull the net up and the guys pulled the salmon out of the net and threw them in buckets.  Caitlin and I were the ones to run the salmon back to the fish holds.  We had to either stab them or rip their gill first though so that they would bleed out (if they don't bleed out then that causes the fishy flavor...fun fact :) )  So we did that for the whole day basically.  We got 320 fish!!! (oh, that was our job too...counting the fish as they pulled them out).  We unloaded them all and then had to fillet them.  That took FOREVER!!!  I am getting better at filleting salmon now though!  We were at that for awhile but then had to go and help with dinner and mingle with the guests.  That was fun.  We got a family of 4 (mom, dad, two girls ages 16 and 13).  They were a really nice family.  Jordan and I were the only ones at dinner because Shannon was at the doctor in Kodiak and everyone else was helping with Salmon.  It was fun to entertain :)  After dinner we ran out and helped the others.  We ended up working until 12:30 a.m.  It was a long night but with us all working together it wasn't so bad :)

So that was the kick-start to our week!!  The rest of the week was relatively normal. We had more guests come in on Wednesday.  It was a group of 6 men.  They were all older guys: 4 from France, one from Switzerland, and one from Australia.  The 4 couldn't speak English so that was interesting...especially because Caitlin had to go and take them on a tour of their cabin and they couldn't understand her at all.  Haha!  It was really fun to watch :)  (now I kind of see what it is like to have a little sister!)

Having a full house of guests kept us very busy for the rest of the week!!!  Everyone was gone by Saturday morning so Saturday was a nice little breather.  We just organized things and such.  It was nice.  The guests were all really nice and it was great to have a diverse group of people.  The family was from Minnesota.  The girls were really sweet and it was fun to chat with them and have 'girl talk' a little.  The parents were very friendly as well.  The European group was a little more tough because we couldn't understand each other super well and our cultures are very different--but it was really cool to experience that.

On Sunday we had a crazy, crazy day.  We had two guests come in.  They are from South Africa.  They are some of the most genuine, respectful people that I have ever met.  I loved them instantly!!!  Peter and Lynda are their names.  Peter is retired and they just like to go on trips!  They take about a month out of every year to do one big trip.  They have been planning this one for over a year.  They absolutely love it here!  Lynda keeps saying that she doesn't want to go back.  They want to move here.  :)  They just GUSH about his place.  They are so cool :)  So they came in the morning.  After they got here and then got on the boat, Caitlin and I had to to help set everything up for the camera crew that was coming.  We were running around like crazy for most of the day setting things up.  By the evening we had most everyone here.

Now to explain about the camera crew:  I can't say too much due to 'confidentiality' and things like that.  What I can say is that there is a film crew here doing a reality TV show.  It will hopefully be airing this fall--so I'll keep you tuned in on that!!  It will be interesting to watch though.  Probably quite dramatic :)  But its been fun to be in on a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes.  We are basically just providing food and shelter for the crew.  They are filming everything (except for beginning interviews) off of our island.  Having everyone here though is hectic!! There are about 14 people here for the crew.  Everyone is really nice though and they have cool things to share with us.  Its been fun :)

Also on Sunday we made more slug trap things because slugs are taking over our garden.  Its awful!! I am so sick of those buggers!! Just a fun fact.

Yeah..I make a pretty good boat captain if I do say so myself :)

Because Sunday was so crazy, Luke said he would take us on the boat on Monday.  We went out with him and Peter and Lynda.  It was really nice to get away, but it was kind of a bummer because it rained all day.  It was really windy too so that made it hard.  We didn't get to see any bears or anything and we didn't do any fishing.  It was really rocky and we got a little sea sick.  Especially Caitlin.  It wiped her out for the rest of the day the poor thing!!  I did get to drive the boat for a bit which was way fun!!  We also saw a cute little fox that we took lots of pictures of on one of the beaches.  We also saw a bunch of Harbor Seals.  It was cool.  Despite the weather and sea sickness, we did have a good day. :)  We got lots of rain, that's for sure!!


Tuesday was average...so let's get to Yesterday!!!  Yesterday was awesome!!  It was just an ordinary day of making lunches, eating food, cleaning cabins, and cleaning our floor.  Then, Josh and Frank were like, we are going to go one up the film crews and get "good footage"--want to come be our cast?  We jumped on that one really quick!!!  We had a guy here with a drone that Josh decided to hire while he was here to get some airiel shots of the property and other areas of Afognak that are just gorgeous.  They wanted other people in the shots to show what it is like for guests.  So we grabbed two other girls who are here with the film crew who are more of the 'office workers' doing the paperwork and stuff. They were happy to get some sight seeing in :).

My little Salmon :) Poor guy didn't stand a chance with that hook!
His blood dripped down my arm...Nasty :)  I am fearless!! haha

We went off and found Luke and his guests where they were fishing.  We ended up fishing as well and I caught my first Halibut ever!! It was awesome!!!!  I am telling you what, those fisheys are HUGE!!  It took forever!! It also took forever because we were in 300 ft deep water and they are fighters! It was soooo much fun though!! I named him Dave after my father because we have a tradition of naming fish after each other :)  Right after that workout, I caught my second on!  It was a baby one though so we threw him back.  It was so fun!!!  After that we were in another spot and other people were catching halibut.  But then I got a fish and we thought it was a halibut but it felt different to me...when I got it up, it was a pink salmon!  They were all shocked to see that it was over there..I guess it was in an unusual spot!!  So that was fun!! It was very exciting.  I love fishing here :)

After the fishing, we were going to go and see some sea lions.  But on our way, we spotted a whale so we chased after that.  We ended up spending probably the next 2 hours or so watching the whales.  It was fabulous.  We chased them all over the place.  We saw pods of them.  At first it was just humpbacks for the first hour and a half or so.  It was incredible.  They got really close to the boat and were flipping their tales and it was just awesome!!  All around us you could see them blowing water and oh man, I can't even describe it!!  It was an amazing sight!!  Then, out of nowhere, in the middle of the humpbacks we saw Orca (Killer Whale) fins!!  They were in a pod--and there was even a little baby!!  We all got SOOO excited.  The guys said that it was really rare to see Orcas mixed right in the humpbacks.  It must have been good feeding :)  So we just followed the whales.  It was so amazing.  All we kept saying was "this is so cool."  "This is amazing!!" We were so close to them!!  Oh man, I could go on and on and on!!!!  Frank (the handyman who has lived in Alaska for a while now) said that it was more fun watching all of us than the whales because we were so excited and into what we were seeing.  It was so breathtaking though.  You couldn't help but smile.  I am so grateful for that amazing experience :)  I hope to have more like it!!

And think..I didn't even have to use zoom for this photo!!

Well, that was our day yesterday!! It was a great end to the day!! I am happy and doing well.  I miss everyone from back home, but I am grateful for this once in a lifetime experience! I hope you are all well!!!  Please keep me in your prayers--I can tell they make a difference!! I love you all and invite questions, comments, or whatever!!!  Keep it real!!!!!!!! :D

The two girls from the film crew, Caitlin and I and our fish :)  This photo was taken on our dock.

Has it really been a week??

Hey all!!  It's me, Alicia again!  It has sure been a crazy busy week here!  Loving it though!!   We have had some awesome experiences this week so I am excited to share!!

We have had the family from Texas here all week and that has been so much fun.  They are really cool people.  They left here on Saturday morning which was sad, but it was great to get to know them as much as we were able to.  They couldn't leave on Friday as planned because of the weather and they couldn't even fly out on Saturday due to fog, so they were taken in on the boat by Luke!!  For the extra day that they were here we ended up just hanging out, watching movies and playing games.  It was fun.  It was also great to get some much needed rain :)

We had a great time with this family and they seemed to love their time here.  Some things we ended up doing together include: Whale watching at sunset, bonfire at Russian Island, a party here, and we ate every meal together.

The coolest thing by far was watching the whales at sunset.  Jordan, Caitlin and I set out in the boat one night to see if we could find some whales, but they were really far away.  We ended up deciding just to watch the sunset from the roof of the boat.  As we were sitting up there, we saw the other boat coming our way!  Luke and the mom and dad of the family that were here were coming out to watch the whales at sunset!  They wanted some good pictures, so they decided to come out and the kids stayed in.  So Luke told us we could come with them!  So we dropped the anchor and hopped on the other boat and took off!!  We went a little ways and we found some whales!  It was an amazing sight!!  They made some really interesting noises and we could see them/feel them blowing water.  It was really beautiful to see them at sunset.  It was so serene and peaceful.

 

At one point, Kathy, Caitlin and I were standing at the front of the boat taking pictures and the boys were all inside staying warm.  We were just chatting and playing with our cameras when all of the sudden a huge 'ole whale was coming right for us!!  We thought we were going to go under FOR SURE.  So Kathy screamed and grabbed Caitlin and I and we were screaming at this point too holding on for dear life!!  We thought we were going to be bumped by the whale and overturned or something!!!  But nothing happened. :)  The boys were inside laughing their heads off at us.  Kathy said that if she was going over she was going to take us with her!  Haha.  It was really funny..so that was my first close encounter with a whale!!  It was an amazing experience as a whole and I am so excited to experience more amazing things like that!

Another cool thing this week:  We went to Russian Island during the day to prepare the bonfire and there was an eagle right on the beach!  It was wounded so it couldn't fly away so I got really close to it!  I'll tell you what, those birds are so beautiful!!  No wonder the bald eagle is our national bird :)

Aside from those things, there wasn't too much else!  We have just been working in the kitchen and garden still with doing random little jobs on the side.  We are kept really busy and are enjoying our time here together.  This week we have a family of 4 coming in tomorrow and then we have another group coming in on Wednesday.  I can't remember the group size right off the top of my head...but it will be fun!!  I am excited to have more guests :)

Well, I sure love you guys and miss everyone!!  I hope all is well and encourage comments/questions/stories/packages/letters..whatever!! Tell me what is going on in civilization! :)  Much love!!!!

'

The signs read: "We aren't starving...Keep it coming!!" :)  Love you!!

Let the summer BEGIN!!!!

Hey everyone!!  Me again :)

This week has been good.  Busy busy!  Another whirlwind!  I will just make a brief list of things I have done this week..the things I can remember that is.. :)

• Painted the BARn floor--didn't finish until 11:30 p.m. :)
• Made slug traps out of yogurt containers and a homemade yeast mixture that we found online because the boys didn't want us to use their beer..haha
• Dragged trash cans into the forest and filled them with moss to put them in the bottom of the hanging baskets
• Picked spruce tips (if you don't know what they are--I didn't..--they are the very end of the spruce tree that buds and then flares out and gets all fluffy.  You pick them when they are still little and you can cook with them!!)
• Put this wax stuff on the bottom of the boat so barnacles and stuff don't grow on it
• Moved lumber
• Hosed off the cabins
• Deep cleaned inside the cabins
• Helped in the kitchen etc. etc. etc

Here we have the lovely Caitlin modelling the rain gear and safety techniques for the four wheeler :)

There is just a brief list of my week.  Its been really busy!!  We had much needed rain all day on Friday.  It was fantastic!!  We did have to wear this really goofy rain gear (which I will have to take a picture of at some point :) ) so that we could work in it.  I still got pretty wet though :)  As we were hosing off the cabins (in the rain..haha) we were trying to figure out if this hose worked or not and it turned out it didn't--and my face was the victim of that one!!  I was already wet so that fact that I sprayed myself full fledged in the face didn't make much of difference..but it was funny :)

So we got our first guests of the season here yesterday!  They are a really cool family from Texas.  The dad is the Mayor of Round Rock Texas.  The mom and dad have been here before and love it.  This is the dad's first time and the mom's second time.  They wanted to bring their two kids (ages 21 girl and 19 year old boy).  They are loving it so far.  It is fun to have other people around to get to know :)

My schedule will be a tiny bit different now that people are arriving.  It is tentatively as follows:
7:00-7:30 in the kitchen making lunches for the boat/helping get breakfast on the table although Brian does and AWESOME job at that so we mostly just do lunches.

8:00--we eat breakfast with the guests

9:00ish--clean up breakfast and tidy kitchen

The rest of the day will be spent doing chores and such-whatever needs to be done.  We should be getting a little bit of free time in between.

Pondering the meaning of life..is there more to pinecones and gardening?? :) haha..OF COURSE!!!

Around 4-5ish we will show back up in the kitchen and help with dinner prep in any way we can.  Dinner is at 7ish (depending on when the guests get back from fishing and other things of the day).  When guests get back with all the fish, at some point I will be helping with cleaning and prepping the fish for vacuum sealing.  That will be fun :)

We will clean up after dinner and then do whatever prep is needed for the next day and then do whatever the guys ask us to do!  Then we will call it a day :)  So that's basically what I will do as far as I understand.  We will see how it is when it comes down to it!! :)

I do like it here a lot.  It is definitely an adjustment and can be hard, but overall I am learning a lot and I am happy.  It sure is beautiful.  The most serene place I have ever been.  I am so grateful for this opportunity and am so excited to see the summer fly by as I stay busy and meet some really cool people!!

Well, thanks for all of your support!!  Keep being awesome! :) 

Yet another shot of how beautiful it is here