Seward to Anchorage

Resurrection Bay on a clear day

If you read the last blog segment, you learned how bad the campground was in Seward, how it rained forever, the road washed out, and the boat trip got postponed. Then when we got on the boat, almost everybody got seasick. I ended the segment with us eating dinner Friday night in Seward.

During dinner, things began to turn around. Paul and I decided to go fishing on Saturday. Consuelo, Maria and the kids decided to go to the Sea Life Center in Seward. We went home and built a campfire. The clouds began to part, and we saw the mountain tops clearly across the bay for the first time in 4 days.

Our fishing boat left at 12:00 noon, a half day outing. It was our iontention to catch some silver salmon, but that was not to be. When we met with the 3 other charterers on the deck on the lodge, one of them was urgent to bottom fish to catch a lingcod. Due to the Alaska fishing rules, if we caught a lingcod, we could not do any other fishing in Resurrection Bay, where the salmon were. Our guide suggested that we bottom fish some, then salmon fish some. We agreed, got into the boat, a 26' center console, and headed down the bay.

Salmon fishing spot

Our first stop was near the cliffs where all the birds congregated which we had seen on the previous day. We stopped over 200' of water and baited up, one guy fishing the bottom, the rest of us fishing for black rockfish. I think our guide weighted the location toward us, since we caught our limit of black rockfish in aboug 45 minutes. We caught no bottom fish. We did catch a couple small sharks. At one point, all five of us had fish on our lines, and our guide, Andy, was busy unhooking, untangling, and stowing rockfish. He knocked them on the head to kill them, because their dorsal fins carried toxic spines which would have disrupted our trip if somebody got spiked.

Once we had our load of rockfish, we motored across the mouth of the bay, watching a pod of 6 or 8 orcas swimming in the same direction we were going. A group of stellar sea lions watched us go by. We then stopped in an area with about 20 other boats fishing for salmon. Paul manage dot catch 2, and I got one. We all lost some before we could get them into the boat. We certainly could have caught more, but time ran out on our trip. So, we had to return home.

Paul and I and the catch from the boat

Our captain and some of the staff at Millers filleted our catch, and we cooked up one of the rockfish for dinner. The salmon and the rest of the rockfish, about 25 lbs of fish altogether, we froze.

Soon after we picked up our fish, the rest of the family returned from the Sea Life Center. Everybody had a grand time there, too. The Center has the largest salt water aquarium tank in the world, and they have wondrful displays of puffins, common murres, sea lions, and the other creatures that live around south central Alaska.

On Sunday morning, Paul got up and out early, taking his camera to the black beach. Independently, I had the same idea, and arrived at the beach about 20 minutes after he did. The rest of the family slept in. We took a few shots of the beach, then decided to walk the nearby trail down towards the point.

The trail was probably the remains of a road built to create and supply a fort on the point which defended Seward during World War II. The fort was about 6 miles down. We only walked the first 1-1/2 miles. The trail was dark and damp, even though the sun was out. Many little streams were still draining all the rainwater from the mountains.

Tosina Creek and Point

We finally reached Tosina Point, the next point down the bay from Millers, where a salmon stream ran into the bay. Dozens of salmon were making their way upstream to spawn, continuing the cycle of life. Just beyond the stream, a flat grassy area remained, most likely a portion of the coast that was submerged in the 1964 earthquake that destroyed Anchorage. The trunks of long dead sitka spruces punctuated the grass. A few folks were fishing in the mouth of the stream, where fishing was allowed. It was closed to fishing farther upstream. We checked it out for a few minutes, then made our way back to the campground.

On Monday, we ran out of fresh water in our tanks. We had been being careful with water, using the grungy restrooms and showers in the campground. Making 20 cups of coffee every morning was a significant toll by iteslf. We figured that our holding takns were nearly full, too, so we packed most everything up and drove into Seward to dump and fill. Maria and Liam had decided to walk into Seward earlier to have lunch together. Consuelo stayed in the campground and got a couple loads of wash done while we tripped into town.

A pair of eagles near our camper

Later Monday was birdwatching day. The eagles were flying around the campground, and a pair of them camped out in a tree near where we were parked. We found an eagle's nest just a few hundred feet away, in another small campground.

On Tuesday, we really packed everything up and left Seward. Maria and Liam decided to take the train from Seward to Girdwood, and the rest of us drove up to Bird Creek, just beyond Girdwood. Paul and I fished in the creek, COnsuelo and Amelia stayed homw and tried on lipstick and other makeup. When we got back from fishing, Consuelo had dinner ready, and Amelia put on a show for us. After dinner, we picked up Maria and Liam at the Girdwood train station.

Paul and the single salmon from Bird Creek

Wednesday morning, Paul and Liam and I tried one more time in Bird Creek to catch some salmon. There were plenty there, and we snagged a few. Alaska regulations require that salmon caught in fresh water must be hooked in the mouth, snagging them with a hook in the fin or tail is not legal, and those fish had to be returned to the river. Paul managed to catch one, which we cleaned stowed for dinner.

Wednesday afternoon, we rolled back into Anchorage, back to the same mediocre campground that we started out in. It was raining again. Although we wanted ot eat the salmon we caught, we wanted more to enjoy the reliable sameness of a night out at MacDonalds, so we all packed into our little VW bug and headed out for dinner. After we ate, we went downtown for some last minute shopping, then got ourselves settled in for the night.

The alarms went off at 5:30 AM on Thursday morning. The kids had packed most everything up the night before, and I bumbled my way around, dumping first a bowl of cereal, then a cup of coffee. We got everybody but Consuelo into the car and headed out to the airport, arriving at 6:30. The car disgorged all the baggage and 5 people, and I went hoem to catch a nap.