Operation Halibut

 

August 5, 2013

We set out once again to bring some halibut home.  Steve called John of JZ’s fishing charters Sunday afternoon since we had completed our work at the RV park. We thought a nice reward would be to fish rather than dig in the ditch.

John answered the phone and said how about tomorrow? Well sure we can do that. You know what that means, yap we have to get up at 0400!  Aw we can do it for the chance of some halibut.

We arrived at JZ’s boat around 5:45 and hit the water at 0600.  We enjoyed the ride out and the beautiful day on the water. The water was like glass which made it even better.

Captain John and his first mate Myrna (his wife too) were great fun and enjoy what they do for a living.  We hit a couple of places for halibut and had success!  Steve was a happy guy as we actually both caught our limit which was great. Now our freezer has halibut to keep the salmon company.

We still had a few hours left to be on the water so went for some snapper and lingcod. We journeyed to a couple of snapper and lingcod spots and at the second one Steve landed a nice sized snapper. It was my turn to get one as he put the pressure on me. I had to take his challenge to catch a bigger snapper than he did. You see I caught the biggest halibut!

So I figured out if I held my mouth a certain way and spoke the right words the fish would come. Well I guess it worked as I got one on the line and reeled, reeled, reeled, kept reeling, and finally the fish was at the surface. We were all excited about what it might be and low and behold it was a snapper. Guess what? Yap you were right it was bigger than Steve’s! Now I didn’t really care about that as we really just wanted some fish!

 

Red Snapper success

Funny how the Captain didn't kiss Steve when he caught one

 

We fished a bit more so John and Myrna could get a snapper as well. We ended up with a third snapper so we brought the poles in, secured the seven fish we had managed to snag, and headed for the marina. A great day on the water but catching the fish made it all the better.

Success on the water - Yippee

 

Captain John and Myrna were great teachers and hosts and we would recommend them to anybody that wants to come to this area and go fishing. You can’t go wrong.

Captain John and Myrna

JZ's mascot

Steve, Myrna, John and the big cat

What a successful fishing boat looks like!

 

 

Once the fish were cleaned, we headed to a restaurant at Telegraph Cove so the chef could cook a piece of the halibut for our lunch. Talk about fresh from the boat fish and chips! Awesome!

We arrived back at the trailer around 5:00 and finished processing the fish. We were happy, Izzy was happy and the freezer full! What a day!

There was one more place folks told us we should see on the north island before we leave the area. This place is called Cole Harbor and was a mainstay back in the 30’s and 40’s for whaling. There is a bit of Canadian air force history there too. We had a chance to tour a small museum and walk on the dock. There was quite a bit of activity for a town that has only a small general store.

A picturesque spot at Cole Harbor

 

We decided to hit the road once again on Monday August 12^th. Our freezer is as full as it can be and there are many other great places to see!

FILOMI Days You Say, eh

July 20-August 5

In our last update I mentioned we were partaking in the Port Hardy Filomi Days.  Since this is such an interesting name (by the way it stands for Fishing, Logging, and Mining) we headed to Carrot Park Saturday morning.  However our first stop was actually to watch the parade.

Remember this is a small town but they sure do have a lot of cool classic cars.  These are just a few that drove by us.  I think we were drooling just as much as Izzy does when these went by!

 

Nice Truck

 

A Cool Ride

 

Not as old as me, well maybe it is

 

A Cool Cadi

They also had several tractors which included a young passenger. Their task was to throw candy to all the kids along the route. Guess who ended up with some salt water taffy?

 

The parade included many fire trucks which came from neighboring towns. It is nice to see such great fire engines for volunteer fire departments. They should be proud.

From the parade we ventured to the park. The day was to be filled with entertainment, food booths, and volleyball contests. We found a great spot to take in all the activities.

 

These girls were part of the entertainment and their ages ranged from 3 to 20.  Pretty darn cute and one was a champion dancer from the province.  By the way this is Highland Dancing.

The Highland Champion is on the left

 

Dancing Wonders

Later in the afternoon several bands or individual singers performed.  This little cutie decided to give the audience some additional entertainment.

Movin' to the music

Such a cutie

 

On Sunday the festivities continued with more of the same however the hardware store boat building contest was taking place. The contest rules are simple. You take materials, build a boat, and then paddle the boat out to a buoy and back. By the way anybody who helps build the boat has to be on it during the floating. The contestants have two hours to build it starting at 10:30 and then they launch at 1:30.

Steve, Izzy and I wandered through the area watching as miscellaneous items were thrown together and end up as a “boat”. A couple of the groups were working hard but it was challenging for us to visualize that what they were working on would end up as a floatation device! Amazingly they all did, well sort of!

A homemade cataraft

The Styrofoam boat

They look like they know what they're doing

This will float?

Guess you could carry lunch with you

Cross Country skis for water, eh

 

The winner was the one that looked most like a boat when being built and the one that just couldn’t get very far was due to the fact that they would work on snow and not water!  Everybody had a great time and the spectators did too!

Heading for the launching point

This looks like a boat, well sort of

Wow we actually got done on time

They hope the Styrofoam holds

 

And they are off

Fun on the water

 

The skis just aren't working out

 

Maybe we should make one of these

The Winners, by a long shot actually

 

 

We headed back to our little oasis after the boaters all got back safely to shore. The view from our window is wonderful!

A couple of days later we went fishing again which of course we can never get tired of salmon or fishing for that matter! Scooter decided to hang out with me again while we were cruising to get to the fishing spot. Along the way we saw several boats that wouldn’t be bad to own!  This one was just a bit bigger than needed!

A little bigger boat than ours, actually it's a cruise ship

Scooter hanging out with me for the ride

 

We have been enjoying the golf course or I should probably say the torture we have been inflicting on ourselves on the golf course!  It is a beautiful setting however if your game is a bit off to the left or the right, you will be carrying less golf balls in your bag. I guess the good thing about that is the bag won’t weigh as much!

Hope it goes where I want it to

Golf course beauty, but also takes your golf balls

 

Actually our stay at the Seven Hills Golf Course has been great especially since Steve was able to trade work for our golf and rent. Well we volunteered to upgrade their electrical set-up for their RV spots. Since we were doing that we also moved the water so both electrical and water would be in the same spot.  I learned how to pull wire the old fashioned way as well as operate the shovel. The shovel became my friend for 4 days. Oh well it was my exercise!!

The Beginning

Izzy is cheering Steve on

The Junior Helper

The Professional at work, Izzy that is

Steve wishes he could bend like this

 

The finished task

The inspector approved

 

Izzy has been having fun as well watching the people come and go, wandering around sniffing as she pleases, and hanging out with her buddy Harley.  Harley is nine years old but still showed a bit of youth with Izzy around. She is also a ball thief as Izzy discovered when we put her ball out for her to play with. It’s a good thing Kevin (her owner and Golf Pro here) knows where she likes to take them, to her bed!

Harley and Izzy

Resting after a round of ball chasing

 

I think they will both miss each other when we leave.

We finished the task and decided to reward ourselves with another chance at catching some halibut and other critters with gills. So stay tuned for more from the fishing fanatics!! 

 

Grocery Store Follies

A Little Different Posting.........

How many of you love to go grocery shopping? Well if you’re anything like Steve and I it’s not at the top of your favorite things to do list.

Now imagine you get to have this wonderful task in a different grocery store every time you need to go get food?  The challenge before you is like tackling a crossword puzzle in a foreign language that you have no clue what it is to begin with. You start at One Down and think heck I should know that right? Well not true. You have to find the clues first.

So you start with grabbing a cart if you can figure out where they have the carts to begin with. When you figure that out you put your list in front of you and go for it. In the meantime your spouse is waiting patiently sitting in the parking lot listening to the local radio, chuckling out loud at the comedy program they are attempting to broadcast. Meanwhile all the customers arriving in the parking lot are wondering why is this guy from Idaho is sitting in this truck laughing?

Back in the store you are trying to figure out the store’s system of where things are and why they put the baking stuff with the paper products. Unfortunately you don’t have time to stand there and ponder this mystery.

Your next task is to try and read the hanging signs that might give you an idea of what is in the aisles so you can become more efficient in the process. Oh yeah, if you have midget legs like I do you can’t really see the signs unless you are at the end of the aisle to begin with so you just end up going down each aisle.

Now one would think if you are shopping in a national or regional chain grocery store the layout would be the same. Well not true. I think each manager has an evil side to them and they go visit other stores in their chain and configure their store differently simply to watch customers wander around aimlessly.

By the time you have half your list completed, you are either really hungry, thirsty or have to go to the bathroom since at least an hour has gone by. If this happens you have to decide can you wait or do you succumb to taking care of whichever it is. In the meantime your spouse is wondering if you were kidnapped and will be asked to pay a ransom.

You finally end up completing the list except you discover you forgot the second thing on the list. Now you have to start all over as you don’t remember seeing it when you were wandering aimlessly through the aisles.  Oh just forget it and put it back on the list for next time.

Let’s talk about prices for a bit shall we. We are pretty much normal people that enjoy having milk on our cereal, cheese on our tacos, and yogurt. I almost had to be resuscitated when I went to grab the gallon of milk, which is three times the cost of what I would pay for it in the states. You don’t even want to know the cost of cheese or yogurt. Let’s just say you might learn to go without dairy products or hope you become lactose intolerant!  Alcohol is something you might learn to go without too since the cost is at a minimum double of what you would expect to pay for it in Idaho or other states. It’s a good thing we don’t drink much!

You head to the checkout stand and of course you pick the line you think will be the quickest which of course it isn’t. Oh yeah by now your spouse has entered the store, found you and asked why it is taking you so long. You of course give him the sad eyes and tell him there is no logic in grocery store shopping which is how you think. 

You get the grocery bags unloaded and into your vehicle, put the cart back, get in and say “I need a drink”.

Welcome to the world of grocery shopping!

 

 

Port Hardy Here We Come

Along time back, well maybe only about six months ago, Steve targeted Port Hardy (located on Vancouver Island) British Columbia as a destination spot for our adventure. It seems they are one of the fishing capitals in the world for ocean/river fishing. Don’t know why he would want to come here???!!!

To get to Vancouver Island one must journey to a ferry terminal. We left Libby on July 8^th with the goal of being on the ferry on July 10^th. We were able to actually get to Tsawwassen to take the ferry a day earlier than planned. So we had time to sit and relax after driving quite a bit for two days and found this recreation area nearby to hang out.

 

We ferried over and spent the night of the 9^th at Campbell River. This is a pretty area and a fairly nice sized town. Funny thing as we met a couple from Campbell River when we spent the night of July 8^th in Princeton British Columbia. They were really nice and gave us some great places to be sure and check out while we are on the island.

We left Campbell River in the morning and continued our adventure to Port Hardy. We stopped along the way for lunch. We picked a nice rest area and wouldn’t you know it Izzy discovered water down the hill. I wonder if we can turn her into a dog that can witch for water underground!!

Getting dried off

Movin' on after lunch break

We arrived at our destination the afternoon of July 10^th. The campground is the Quatse River Salmon recovery Centre and Campground and is along the Quatse river. Lucky for Izzy to have her own swimming hole.  Since it's a fish hatchery maybe I could practice my fly fishing too!

The area is beautiful and the town is small and definitely a port town. Steve being the shy fellow he is was able to open up long enough to get connected with someone that enjoys fishing as much as he does. The good part about this is he owns a boat. Go figure!

So we met Jim and his dog Scooter. Needless to say we didn’t waste any time getting into the boat to go fishing. Our first day out was Friday and quite successful. We brought in five fish to the boat, all Chinook (also called springers and kings) and Coho. Yummy! It is too bad we didn’t get all of the ones we hooked into the boat. But we wouldn’t have been able to keep all of them anyway unless we got Scooter a fishing license too!

Getting ready to go fishing

Captain Jim and First Mate Scooter

Steve and I actually did go fishing on Thursday from the dock. We caught a few of these wonderful looking creatures and decided since they were so interesting we didn’t want to keep them!

There are several trails from the campground that you can walk or ride your bike on so one day we decided to go for a bike ride to the marina. We ran into Jim there as he was pulling in with his boat and his boss. We sat and visited with them for a bit and then headed back to our camp.  The trail was wide enough in some spots we could ride side-by-side. Unfortunately I being the talented klutz that I am found a spot that had a nice low branch encroaching into the trail which I had to skillfully avoid. My skills are so good that I had to sacrifice myself so I wouldn’t run into Steve’s back tire. So yap you guessed it I gracefully had a bike accident. Lucky for me all those years of being a klutz paid off and I was able to fall correctly and not damage my bike or me for that matter. Good thing to as Izzy wasn’t there to kiss any scrapes and make them better!

We have been exploring and checking out the different sites. We went to an area called Telegraph Cove which has about only 3 residents during the winter.  However this time of year there are quite a few people hanging around. It is a beautiful spot and filled with history of WWII and the establishment of the telegraph in order to let the country know if there was any enemy activity going on. Besides being known for the telegraph, the town is a fishing and logging community.  We had lunch overlooking the marina and wandered around and toured their whale museum. The museum is great and has quite the variety of bones on display, and is a great place for an education on these creatures as well as other. It’s also built above the water so if you look through the cracks in the floor you see the water.

An old Dodge at Telegraph Cove

The view from the dock

Part of the marina at Telegraph Cove

  

Jim and Scooter accompanied us one day for a tour to Port Alice and the Marble River. We stopped at one of the lakes for a picnic. Of course Izzy had to go swimming.

Waiting for a stick to be thrown

 

The Marble River is quite well known for its trout fishing ability and we stopped on the bridge and even spotted a couple of Steel head. Pretty cool if you ask me.

The Marble River

 

On the way back to our home, Jim routed us to the southern part of Port Hardy. We stopped at this bay and spotted this old boat. It is has been here quite a while so I think we might be able to buy it pretty cheap if we want!

We might be able to afford this boat

Jim and Tory

Deep in conversation

 

Jim took us out fishing again this week to a different spot than we fished the last time. We had a great day and brought back more fish! Scooter decided to hang out with me for a bit of the boat ride as we did some touring of the Gordon Group islands. At the end of Vancouver Island is Cape Scott and this lighthouse which is still staffed.  We didn’t realize how many islands there are off of British Columbia’s mainland. You could spend a lot of time island hopping up here.

 

 

Scooter found the best spot!

Cape Scott Lighthouse

Guess what's for dinner?

We hadn’t been fishing for halibut yet so we arranged to go on Thursday (July 18) with one of the local guides. We had to wake up at 0400 for this little trip. Made me feel like I was back at work! We struck out on getting even a nibble from a halibut or any other bottom fish, but did manage to hook three more salmon.  Steve caught the biggest one which was around 25 pounds when we were shooting for halibut.  It didn’t matter to us since we kind of like salmon.

Steve won the biggest fish for the day

We haven’t given up on trying to catch some of those funny looking bottom fish so we will find another day to try again.

We will be checking out the festivities this weekend here as they have an annual event called the Filomi days. It stands for fishing, logging and mining since those are the three primary things that happen in this neck of the woods. 

We will be moving to another RV spot on Sunday which is pretty sweet. We get to have a gorgeous view of the mountains and the golf course at the same time!  You know what that means don’t you? Yap, we get to chase the little white thing some as well as the little things that swim!! Heaven help us! More to come from Port Hardy!