We were given an amazing opportunity to go halibut fishing this last Sunday and we had an absolute blast! I was very nervous about taking Lucas out on a boat, but as usual, he exceeded my expectations!
There were only 2 brief unhappy moments,but beyond that, he truly enjoyed himself! This was my first trip to Whittier and the drive there was absolutely gorgeous! There is a tunnel that you have to pass through in order to get there and I swear it was almost a mile long! Lucas was yelling "Yay, tunnel!" and we couldn't help but laugh. When we arrived I took one look at the boat and my heart nearly sank into my chest. I thought "oh boy, this is NOT going to be very fun." But in all reality, it was much bigger than it looked!
There were quite a bit of us on the boat, but space was not an issue. After filling up the tank we headed out to the open water. The first thing I noticed was a beautiful glacier off to the side! While driving to Whittier we saw a brief glimpse of Portage Glacier and Levi was telling me how it's continuously drifting, and pretty soon it wont be in the same location. I'm not sure if this is the same glacier or not, but the way that it stood out from the surrounding mountains was breathtaking! We immediately went to go check on the shrimp baskets that the captain had set the night before.
I had never seen a live shrimp before so I really had no idea what to expect! UGLY! We caught close to 120 the first collection (6 baskets total) and fairly close to the same number when we circled back around that evening. We also caught a few crabs, but we weren't allowed to keep them. But they were fun to play with at least! Levi made a delicious batter and we deep fried the shrimp that night! YUM! 
They were so sweet and delicious and I would definitely rate them Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. quality! I usually leave the sea food prep to Levi because it always turns out so delicious!After collecting the shrimp we were on the hunt for a nice fishing spot! We LOVE halibut... salmon gets old FAST. On our journey there we saw a large fin sticking out of the water and as we got closer we realized that it was an Orca whale! Now I must tell you, I think they are absolutely beautiful creatures, but since our first Hawaii trip I always have nightmares about them attacking me. So it would figure that we'd see some right off the bat! There was also a pod of porpoises swimming at lighting speed around our boat. Lucas was so excited and kept yelling for the "dolphins" and it was so cute that I didn't correct them. Heck- I don't even know the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise. Do you? We also saw some blue whales, sea lions, otters, and puffins! It was quite the wildlife adventure!
Levi was the first one to reel in a fish and luckily for us, it was a nice little halibut!
We had little luck with the first spot so we rode around for a bit to a better location. We hit the jackpot because it wasn't long until we were catching fish left and right! You are allowed to keep 2 halibut per person so we walked away with 6 fish for ourselves, and a total of 14 for the boat. I hear that it's sometimes difficult to max out on your limit but we ultimately had to toss some back because we were having such good luck.
We also caught 2 rock fish and 2 cod...excited to see how those turn out! I was so proud of myself for reeling in my own fish!I must say, fishing is SO much harder than it looks. We were fishing at a depth of 330 ft so I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise that my arm muscles ached so badly the next morning. But it was all worth it because we have enough fish to last us a year...seriously! Lucas was very intrigued by the fishing poles but he kept his distance when we pulled the fish onto the boat.
I don't blame him though...have you ever seen a halibut? They are flat and both of their eye balls are on the same side of their head. FREAKY! He seemed very concerned that Levi would knock them out with a bat and then open up the hatch to throw them in. He kept asking me "Where'd fishy go?" Let's just hope that he doesn't pick up this habit of knocking out animals with a bat!By the time that we looked at a clock we realized that it was 7 o'clock.
I couldn't believe that we had been out for so long but I suppose the saying is true, "Time flies when you're having fun!" We still had to pull the shrimp and rush to get out of Whittier before the tunnel shut down for the night. I was really worried that we were going to be stuck and have to get a hotel, but I suppose that wouldn't have been so bad after all. We got the boat out and drove through the tunnel with barely any time to spare. The guys still needed to fillet the fish, so we pulled off on the highway and let the guys get to work! Lucas and I walked around and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and of course, found tons of rocks! (My toddler's favorite past time!) We didn't get home until 1:30 and we still had to package up all the fish before it went bad.
I was EXHAUSTED, but the trip was well worth it!
It was a wonderful Father's Day and my boys got to spend lots of quality time together exploring something that we had never done together as a family! Nothing makes me happier than these boys right here, and it was great to see them having such a good time together. I'm definitely going to have to come up with something amazing next year to top this one off!
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