Monday, July 27, 2009

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.



fundraiser for the Fire Department Saturday.


And finally, a bit of humor from my Mom.

Do you know anybody like this? I do.  LOL



2 comments:

Karen Deborah said...

great pictures and fun with the fishing. your sister should RIDE that bike that is a cruiser and they are great!!! that bike looks to be in very good condition.

Kathy said...

You live in such a beautiful place and I love that you share it. I hope that your Mother is doing well.