I AM STILL HOME

The plan has been changed a bit from my last post

about my Mom. The surgery has been delayed and

my sister and niece are traveling to be with Mom

for a couple of weeks. After that I will most likely

be going down for a couple of weeks to help out.

It will be interesting to go from highs in the 60's

to upper 90's. WA state is having record heat and

very little rain this summer.

We went out in the boat after church yesterday.

We were planning on taking a hike since it turned

out to be such a nice day, but after talking to our

pastor we decided to take he and his wife and

their grand daughter that is visiting from CA

out on the water. The grand daughter leaves

this Tuesday & they really wanted her to have

done some fishing before she went home.

We went out approx 12 miles to an amazing

island called St. Lazaria. You can read more

about it here

It was incredible out here--reminded me of pictures I

have seen of the Galapagos Islands, all primitive and

ancient looking. This island is a bird sanctuary and 

home to thousands of sea birds. The photo above

shows the waves exploding out of one of the caverns.

It was spraying so hard it looked like a geyser!

There were people in a raft that were from a

large boat anchored nearby. They are looking

up at hundreds of sea birds nesting in the rocks.

It was really loud with all the bird noises and

the water to the left was pouring in from

the cave. The swells here were getting pretty

big so we went back around to the other

protected side of the island.

The volcanic rocks are layered like shale and the grass

and moss are hanging down to the water. It reminds of

the island from the book Where the Wild Things Are. It

didn't help that fog was creeping in around everything...

Another awesome cave...

One of these times we will see if we can go ashore. I know

it is a protected island, but people are allowed to walk

around carefully and observe the birds. We had to get

back at this point because as you can see by the pictures

we had a pea soup fog bank roll in off the open ocean

(which is right in front of this island) and everything

was disappearing fast. At one point we were totally

surrounded by white fog. There were no landmarks

in site and without the GPS it would have been easy

to go the opposite direction you wanted to go.

Well the fog bank cleared temporarily and we 

stopped about halfway back because the sun was 

shining and the ocean was flat again. We spotted

 a group of birds gathering on the water, which 

means there are feeder fish at the surface, which 

means there are bigger fish eating them! Here's 

what my husband hooked just a few minutes 

after stopping. See the fog in the background

showing up again? It was weird how quiet it

was out there.

And here's our pastor with a large Black Bass, one

of about 15 he caught in one spot. I fried a few

as soon as we got home and they were really 

tasty delicious filleted and fried with just a

bit of seasoning.

Their grand daughter had a great time once she

got past the initial screaming whenever a fish

was brought onboard. The first time she did that

I almost jumped overboard it scared me so bad!

I was totally unprepared for an ear splitting

scream out in that quiet.

Here she got brave enough to hold a small 

one for a picture before it was tossed back. I

think her favorites were the immense

jelly fish that were swimming continuously

under the boat. Some of them had tentacles

that were 8 feet long flowing behind them.

She saw a lot of amazing sites yesterday to tell 

her family about back home. We were fortunate 

enough to see sea lions, seals, sea otters, eagles, 

too many types of water birds to count, puffins, 

loons, jelly fish and the best of all--a Humpback 

Whale surfaced and blew right by the boat!

My sister's latest yard ornament. She filled the front

basket with flowers--kind cool, huh? 

Now wait a minute--

isn't that the bike the wicked witch rode in Wizard of Oz?

But if that's her bike, that means my sister....

Naw. Couldn't be. My sister has blonde hair.

And she doesn't wear a black hat.

Firemen cookies I donated to the annual 

fundraiser for the Fire Department Saturday.

And finally, a bit of humor from my Mom.

Do you know anybody like this? I do.  LOL