Saturday Fishing

There was an accident last week in the Greear Home.

This first picture is of Glenn's boat cutting through the fog beside us.

While the little kids and I were in Anchorage and while Vince was in Soldotna working, the big boys were home alone. They probably spent some time in the basement by the stand up freezer, watching TV or sleeping, but they did not notice the cool breeze that the open freezer door was sending out into the space. By the time we noticed it it had defrosted most of the fish we had put away for the winter. We spent the next week eating a lot of fish.

This lack of fish necessitated our fishing.
It was a beautiful day on the sea. We caught an unusually high number of skates (they are in the ray family). We think we ended up hooking 6 of them, which is unusual. We saw no whales, but plenty of otters and birds.
We ended up with our limit of little 'chicken' halibut. I am sure it will be plenty to keep us going through most of the winter. I was just informed that we do not have enough to make it through the winter and will be fishing again next weekend.

For me, it was fun to be with my family on the sea.
Here is the Radeke Family and the now famous Time Bandit of Deadliest Catch fame!

There are other things that needed to be included in the photos but that my hands were too slimy to capture. One especially, the Filipino Lady standing at the cleaning table at the harbor collecting everyone's halibut heads and halibut skin. She left with a very large cooler full of them. She'll make soup for the year with the heads and fry the skins like potato chips. Her American husband made it clear that he was not a big fan of fish head soup, but he does not believe in complaining about what is set in front of him.

In a very White American way that I am not proud of, I turned to my mother (who has lived in the Philippines and speaks the tiniest bit of Tagalog) and said, "You know, this just reminds me of how Filipinos will eat ANYTHING." I know I only said that because I was flashing back on lunches I shared with my co-workers at the Duty Free Shoppers in Saipan, and the post traumatic stress disorder that followed. One meal in particular that my Carolinian co-worker took me too at the Filipino buffet across the street from the mall. He only took me there to watch me try to be polite as I tried to choose between blood stew and pig ears. Oh yes, he was rolling! He and I have one important characteristic in common, we both really know how to amuse ourselves and on this day he was the one being amused.Oh, this is off the subject but since the nation is talking about health care reform, I suppose this would be a good time to add a little background on the inner workings of Alana's health care philosophy...

When I learned that the naturalpathic medicine of choice in that part of the world (Southeast Asia/Pacific Rim) is to eat a black dog before winter as a blood tonic, the validity of all nauralpathic medicines came into doubt for me. Ever since, I've been all about the occasional antibiotic.

Just saying...