Cast of Characters #4

This is Nana and Papa.  They are the most important people at camp.  Without them there would be no camp!  Leon is Bryan's dad and Judy is his mom.  My sister and I spent every summer with our grandparents so I love that my kids get to do the same.  Plus who else is going to give the boys grape pop and cookies when I tell them no more sweets!  haha

*pictures taken by Garett

Friday

Today was supposed to be "pull-up" day.  That is when we are told by Fish and Game that our nets need to be out of the water, for a certain period of time, by 9pm.  We got a 72 hour extension which is nice.  We are hoping that it will just keep getting extended for awhile.  We only have part of our gear in the water currently but that has been just fine.  There has been a tremendous amount of kelp (we call it dirt) in the water.  This is not good when you are trying to catch fish with your "invisible" net!  So the fishermen have been working hard trying to keep the nets clean and praying for some fish at the same time.  It is always good to be fishing though.  Can't make money if your nets are on shore.

I mentioned before that the Barbers left.  We now have 2 new crewmen - Austin and Justin.  Austin is Adam's brother and Justin fished for us 2 years ago.  Everyone is learning the ropes and getting along fine.  We are really fortunate with the help that we have this year.  We also have company - Bob.  He is our neighbor in Seattle.  This is his third year here visiting us.  He is always a pleasure to have and he likes it here too so it all works out - ha!  The interesting thing about Bob is that he used to fish out here - just down the beach from us - when he was a teenager.  Small world isn't it?  It is fun to listen to the memories he has about the area and I know he enjoys being a part of it again.  This is definitely a special place.

The picture is of Justin, Adam and Bob delivering to our tender the Sierra Seas.  Justin is on the left.  Adam is sort of in the middle - the one facing the camera.  Bob is closest to the tender in the lighter color coat.  We deliver our fish to our tender 3 times a day.  We pick the fish 3 times a day and the salmon are put into slush ice in insulated totes as we get them.  The totes are lined with bags that are then lifted by the crane on the tender.  This is attached to a scale so that we know how many pounds we've caught.  Each species of fish has a different price per pound, so we separate them as we catch them in the skiff.  Once the fish are weighed and recorded, the are dumped into the hold of the boat that has refrigerated sea water in it.  The tender delivers the fish to our cannery every evening.  He is back out here in the morning with any groceries we may have ordered, our mail, and ready to take our new fish.

Cast of Characters #3

These are our doggies.  Rudy is on the left.  He belongs to the cousins.  Rudy was actually born out here at camp 8 years ago!  Lucy is above on the right.  She is our little girl.  She is about 1 1/2 years old.  Both dogs have been having the time of their lives out here!  Civilization is going to be a hard thing to get used to when they go home!  It is doggie heaven at Spiridon Camp!

Cast of Characters #2

These are the boys' cousins and aunt.  Terri is Bryan's older sister.  She is in the picture below.  My boys love Aunt Terri because she is FUN!  To the right is Sammie.  She's the middle child.  Sammie likes this picture because it is better than the one that Garett took of her :)

Steven is the oldest child and the only other grandson in the family.  He is Terri's fishing partner.  Chrissy is the youngest.  As you can see, she is always smiling!  Terri and the kids spend the first half of the summer with us.  Things are much quieter when they leave :(

Cast of Characters #1

This is the Francisco Family.

Top left is Garett.  He's the older brother.  Top right is Emmett.  He's the younger brother.

Daddy (Bryan) is on the bottom left and Mommy (Lara) on the right.

**All photos are taken by Garett

Mother Nature

A couple of days ago the fishing crew found some baby ducks out on the water with no mom.  They were heading right to one of our nets so they scooped them out of the water and ended up bringing them back home.  The hope was that we could call Fish and Game to figure out what to do with the babies.  Thinking of course that we'd probably be flying them into town.  

In the meantime, the kids got busy making "habitats" for the ducklings.  Yes, that is the exact word they used.  There was one tote for "land", and another for "water".  All in all the ducks seemed pretty happy, well except for their constant wanting to jump out of the totes.  With two dogs running around it wasn't a good idea to let them loose in the grass.  Our phone (of course) wasn't working so the ducklings had to stay the night.  The kids made them a nice soft nest out of rags to sleep in.

In the morning, our phone still didn't work and one of the ducks had taken a turn for the worse - he didn't make it.  Nana gave the kids a good talk about Mother Nature and that nature has to take it's course and that it was time for us to put them back where they belong.  This of course led to Emmett immediately barging into the house saying, "Mom?  Where does Mother Nature live?"   (photo by Garett)

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Actually it is just mostly planes and boats, but you'll get the idea.

I often hear from friends about how much they'd like to come visit. Or, that they'll be in Alaska so maybe they could stop and see us, etc... It is not so easy and not so affordable to do this though. First you need to get to Anchorage. Most people do that by jet, but you can go by cruise ship or drive the AlCan. From there, you take a plane to Kodiak. This fare is un-

reasonable at best. More often than not it is around $200 EACH WAY. The flight is 45 minutes, go figure. You can take an Alaskan Ferry also but you need to get yourself to Homer first. So once you get to the Kodiak airport (pictured at left-yes this is the whole

 thing) you walk across the parking lot to Island Air (picture below). From there you catch a small "bush" plane that may seat 4, 6, or 8 plus cargo. The ticket prices here are $99 each way. If you have more than 50lbs total of baggage then you pay for that too. A picture of the plane Bryan and I took is also shown below. There were 8 of us on the plane this last trip. Another one took most of our baggage. Depending upon what the weather is like,  you fly either over the mountains or around the outside of the island to Larsen Bay - an Alaskan Native village on the other side of the island. This is home to the cannery that we work for currently, Icicle

 Seafoods.

Once you get to the village of Larsen Bay, you take a 1/2 hour skiff ride to our camp.  Rain or shine!  Then...you are at camp.  One of the most beautiful places on Earth!  So if you are up for an adventure and have some spare change - come for a visit some time :)

The last picture I took from the plane.  You can see the landing strip at the top.  The long pier and the buildings with the red roofs is the cannery.