MAY 28, 2022 – SITKA

Last night John and I ended up at Ludvig’s Restaurant, our favorite place in Sitka. Their website said they weren’t open until June 1^st so it was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon them. The sun was still shining and the temps were still warm after dinner so we decided to take the whaler out for a spin around the harbor, and admire the beautiful waterfront homes perched on the rocks and islets out in the bay in front of Sitka. This town is so picturesque.

Well thank God I didn’t go fishing with John this morning, he said the run out to the fishing grounds was nearly an hour and a half each way and the outside water was “rougher than Sh*t” in his own words. For him to say that, it had to be pretty rough indeed. He said he felt like a bobbing cork in the giant swells which were running against the tide so it created quite the washing machine. BUT….his efforts paid off! Within 2 minutes of putting his gear down, he landed a 21lb chinook and since the limit is one fish, he pretty much packed it up and came back in. We didn’t know fishing would be open here so my freezer isn’t prepared for the influx of fish, it’s full of meat and crab/shrimp bait. I am flying home in a couple days for a quick 24 hour trip, so will haul some fish home with me to make room. After vacuum sealing the catch and taking showers, we met up with David and Shannon and drove out to the “Fortress of Bear” which is the bear rescue place. I know I wrote about this 4 years ago in my blog but for a refresher, apparently when the Mama bears get shot (for whatever reason) and the babies are orphaned, wildlife officials usually have to euthanize the babies because there is nowhere to send them. A zoo isn’t an appropriate placement I guess when they are wild babies. So this nonprofit takes the orphaned bears and gives them a home, and once they are adults then they can be placed in zoos. Their goal is to place them back in the wild but they need to expand their program. They had four coastal brown bears in residence and three black bears. They have an elevated platform where you can view them down in their very generously sized pens. After that we stopped at the raptor center which rehabs injured raptors and releases them back in the wild if possible. They had two resident eagles for unobstructed viewing (they could see us ) that won’t be returned to the wild because of the extent of their injuries, one having been hit by a car and mentally impaired and blind in one eye, and the other had 9 of his 10 major flight feathers sheared off by a power line, and I guess those will not recover. Then they had 4 eagles in various stages of rehab that were expected to go back into the wild, and those we viewed through a screen that doesn’t allow the birds to see us but we can see them. They want those eagles to be fearful of humans not used to them so they block their access. They also had several owls from the tiniest absolutely cutest little guy (Northern Sawwhet Owl), to a Great Horned Owl, and a Snowy owl. We’ve visited before but we always learn something new. This time is was that juvenile eagles are kicked out of the nest at about a year of age and they actually have a larger wingspan at one year than they do at adulthood. The caregivers told us the extra feathers and wing span serves as “flight training wheels” for the young eagles until they perfect their flying. I thought that was interesting. And the fact that it takes 5 years for them to fully develop the white head and tail feathers. We had a late lunch at the Bayview Pub, then the boys returned to the boats and Shan and I walked the shops and galleries to our heart’s content! None of us was hungry for dinner so after a session of cards we all called it quits for the night.