Gear Prep On A Budget…
People “Ooh”, “Aah”, and “Wow!” about all of our trips of
late and we have to admit, we’ve taken a bunch!
What may not be as obvious is one of the ways we afford these
things: the ways we don’t spend money in
order to spend money for a trip. I was
thinking about this as my dear husband Chris pulled out needle and thread to
repair a backpack he had bought at Goodwill so that it would last one more
time, one more trip. Spend $10 or more
on a backpack from, say, Walmart?
Unthinkable!! Same thing went for
my purse on the last trip when its strap broke—safety pin fix!! Buy a new pair of jeans to replace the ones
with holes in them—are you kidding me?
Patch fix!!
Chris and I spend almost nothing on clothes and shoes. I think $500 a YEAR for us BOTH is an
overestimation (and this includes things like hats, gloves, socks, underwear),
much to the chagrin of my fashionable friends (yes, I DO have them!) who tire
of seeing me in the same clothes year in and year out. I don’t think Chris’ friends give a hoot
about what he wears—MEN!!
Then there’s the way we feed ourselves on these trips at
times: we’re perfectly happy making a
trip to the nearest grocery store, picking up cheese and such, and calling it
good.
So we might spend some money to GET somewhere, but we’re
saving money as we do it most of the time.
What most people spend on one week’s trip across country, we can use to
take a month-long trip to Alaska.
This trip, however, we decided to pamper ourselves a bit,
and go to our favorite humble little town of Coffman Cove without our usual
do-it-yourself-haul-everything camping adventure. We signed up with Coffman Cove Adventures and
ended up in a comfortable cabin, being fed our meals (great meals), with a
vehicle and a boat (NICE boat!) for an entire week. It was definitely more relaxing for us and
less stressful, as we didn’t have to plan and pack for weeks in advance; and
when the week was up, we just packed our bags and headed on back. Nice!!
Coffman Cove, Alaska—the
Pampered Route…
8/16/14--Saturday
O-dark 1:00
a.m.—time to rise and get going!! Our
plane left Portland, Oregon at 5:05 a.m. so we had to get from Salem to the
Thrifty Parking Lot to park our car and shuttle over in time to get through
baggage check and security. A Note To Anyone Leaving On That Early A
Flight Out Of PDX: Security does not
open until 4:00 a.m., so be sure you get there in time to be in front of the
line to give yourself a chance if you’ve got, say, a 5:00 a.m. flight! This was hard to achieve when our airlines,
Alaska Airlines also didn’t open until 4:00 a.m.—slight panic!! But I guess these folks are used to this and
they hustled us through the pre-check line (quite the move-you-on-through
operation complete with no shoe removal, and virtually no inspection—INCLUDING
Chris’ backpack, which contained fishing gear complete with heavy metal weights
and shart objects)…kinda makes you pause considering what ELSE might be “okay”
to move on through…hmmmm…just sayin’!
We were
noting, as we had on our last Alaska adventure, that even with our slight panic
there in Portland, we were blessed with smooth sailing in terms of our
arrangements. We got to our gate in time
for our flight to Seattle, had a short nap on the flight, had time in Seattle
for breakfast and then had another nap on the flight to Ketchikan…bummed around
Ketchikan (played cribbage at the ferry terminal, had a piece of pie—worth
saying “Goodbye, diet!” at least once here) before our Island Air flight to
Coffman Cove. This proved to be quite an
amazing flight—had beautiful weather and saw majestic mountain tops of Prince
of Wales we had never seen before—really gorgeous!
Our Coffman
Cove Adventures host Mike met us at the landing strip, loaded us up and
delivered us to our cabin which, as I said earlier, came with a sturdy vehicle
for us to use as we pleased. There was a
spot of adventure regarding the vehicle—Mike had taken heart and loaned it to a
local who appeared to have vanished with it but, as we’ve discovered before
with any Coffman Cove problem that arises, the community pulled together, found
the vehicle, and delivered it to the cabin where it was waiting for us upon
arrival.
We
immediately felt at home there and liked Mike’s amazingly organized but
laid-back establishment, as well as his great sense of humor. He reminded Chris of his buddy Walt (“No,” he
corrected me, “He IS Walt!!”), and he entertained us many times with various
stories of his various life adventures—and he’s had quite a few, including
getting ordained as a “Dudist Priest” via the movie “The Big Lebowski”! The only bummer was that his wife wasn’t
there that week, so we didn’t get to meet her, but heard plenty of great things
about her as well. I guess I won’t wax
too poetically though as he said several times that he doesn’t need any more
advertising or marketing—he gets plenty of repeat clients, and we could
definitely see why! On top of his place,
he’s an astoundingly good cook, and threw together a wonderful “simple”
spaghetti feed that night with the assistance of one of his crack crew—a
beautiful young lady Rachelle who works for him during her summers. We enjoyed chatting with both of them and
then with the other 2 cabin occupant groups—one was from New York and the other
from Utah—but we had been up almost 20 hours straight and were ready for sleep
which came swiftly once we hit our pillows.
8/17/14—Sunday
We slept
great in our nice cabin and were treated to wonderful eats again in the
morning, courtesy of Mike. Although the
weather was supposed to be better the rest of the week, today was predicted
nasty, so everyone river-fished, lake-fished, and killed time until tomorrow—no
boats out (lots of white caps and rain).
Chris and I also drove to Ratz Harbor and around town—paying visits to
places we had been on our last visit here 4 years before. A couple of places had gotten a face lift,
including the Riggin’ Shack—which actually has a solid floor now and is
attached to a hamburger joint—whew!!—and the liquor store, now attached to a
bar.
So we drove,
enjoyed our packed lunches, listened to our audio book, and Chris hit the
fishing on Staney Creek, catching and releasing a bunch of pink salmon.
Back at
“base”, we were treated to another amazing meal and dessert (double goodbye
diet!)—and relaxed/shared stories with the others. Tomorrow’s a big halibut fishing day on the
boat—wee-haw!!
8/18/14—Monday
The weather
had indeed improved and we got our breakfast (another great one—in fact, just
assume ALL the meals are great/fantastic/and-any-other-adjective-that-do-the-meals-justice,
because they were, and I won’t have to keep trying to come up with new
adjectives). We got our lunches made
with all the fixings you could possibly want, got down to the harbor where Mike
gave us a complete boat orientation, and off we went.
We spent the
entire day around Rose Island and enjoyed ourselves as we fished; listening to
our audio book on a boom box we had packed (in lieu of a few more clothes)—had
some halibut excitement but no landings.
Trolled for salmon on the way home and caught some, along with rockfish,
but threw those back. We were trying to
hold to halibuts for keepers this time around.
I guess
maybe it’s because my Dad’s a retired oceanographer that I seem to have the
ocean in my blood. Mind you, I’m not
fond of being out there when it’s crappy weather, but on nice days, you can’t
convince me to come in—I love just staring at the water, watching whatever
comes along (whales, porpoises, etc.) and enjoying the sparkles on the water,
the rocking of the boat, the sounds of relaxing water lapping here and there; I
could stay out there forever. Especially
since this boat was equipped with a “fancy” restroom equipment for me. Let me explain:
Boat Potty Basics
Okay, so for
a woman on a boat all day—a boat that doesn’t have a bathroom per se—it’s kind
of challenging at times. I was
introduced to the boat potty basics back in 2001 when I spent days on a fishing
boat with Chris and his buddy Steve.
This one was a milk carton with the lid screwed on and the bottom (the wider
portion) cut off, so that it provided a “pot” you could hold onto while taking
care of things—pretty ingenious, actually.
It took some basic coordination, but I could get the job done and then
rinse the container out overboard (and the guys were perfect gentlemen, turning
the other way to give me privacy). Once
again, men seem to be better equipped for such matters—so jealous when they had
to go…how easy THEY have it, I’m thinking to myself all the time. Okay, then there was the bucket I had to straddle
at another lodge we stayed at. This
worked similarly, except for one memorable time when a surprise wake hit before
I finished and I was crab-walking back and forth with the wake, bucket going
with me, back and forth. Chris took a
while to recover from the laughter on that one, and I have to admit, in
hindsight (no pun intended—well, okay, maybe), it was pretty funny.
So imagine
the thrill when Mike said to me, “And here’s your bathroom!” and I said,
“Really?” saw him smiling and said, “Oh—what, a bucket? No problem.”
But then he revealed the secret part—this was no ordinary bucket! This was a bucket with a TOILET SEAT SNAPPED
ON TOP!! I squealed—“Wow!!!” Okay, so there are cheap thrills to this part
of fishing/boating—let me have my moment—seriously, to me, it was like the Ritz
Carlton of fishing boat potty experiences!
I thanked him on the last day and he said his wife Sarah had a hand in
making that happen. So I left her a
thank you note and a tip for that.
So, after a
COMFORTABLE day on the ocean, Mike met us at the dock and we reported no fish
to clean, but a great day nonetheless.
True story. Smiles.
Another
(superlative adjectives here) creation by Mike for dinner and dessert. After chatting it up with other folks, we
ended our evening playing Cribbage and watching a little TV (satellite—roughin’
it!) before turning in.
8/19/14—Tuesday
Beautiful
day today—better than yesterday!! Got
breakfast and off for a new adventure today—Stanhope. We boated across the Clarence Striahgt all the
way up to Stanhope Point for halibut fishing.
We caught a little one and threw him back, then got some exciting bites
and fished a while longer before quitting for some sight-seeing…Mike had told
us about a neat passage behind the point with a fish hatchery and a nice home
between 2 mountains…it was a perfect boating adventure. We stopped on the way back to try our halibut
luck again and Chris caught another small one which we decided to keep in the
box—every bit counts, after all!
Another
great day and dinner after. We did a
“drive-about” after that and took pictures of the sunset (pick your superlative
adjective again), then turned in.
8/20/14—Wednesday
Wow—another
gorgeous day on the Cove—how lucky did we GET with the week we picked? Once again, we got our lunches ready after
breakfast and took off for more Halibut fishing. This time, per Mike’s suggestion, we hugged
the shoreline south of Coffman Cove. It
was a GREAT day fishing on top of all the other ways it was a great day!! Chris caught a bunch of cod and bottom fish
and I landed one cod…and of course LOVED being on the ocean on such a beautiful
day—can’t beat that!! Total take in the
box (what we kept): 2 small halbitu, 3
good-sized cod, 1 bottom fish. Hauled in
our “loot” and took showers/relaxed before dinner. Proceeded to crash early (8-ish) and slept
like logs. Nice.
8/21/14—Thursday
Two more
days left out on the ocean (another amazingly gorgeous day today!) and only 9
pounds left to complete our box. We had
INTENDED to keep to one (50-pound) box, because that’s all that we could
possibly fit in our refrigerator freezer at home. Mike told us to keep everything we catch of
the white fish because there are always takers for that stuff, even though the
taker cannot be Mike himself (evidently, there are regulations for lodges and
such where they can only serve fish that has been inspected—so all the fish we
actually ate there came from the local Costco—kinda strange!). So after breakfast, we took a couple of
snacks (not a full lunch—we intend to be good and hungry for dinner
tonight—been eating wayyyyy too much!!).
Today was a
GREAT/PERFECT/SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES ONCE AGAIN day!! The ocean was like glass almost the whole
time, which accented the amazing scenery and relaxed boat time. BUT…we ALSO ran into some halibut action and
had a ball landing 3—no biggies, but we have definitely completed our one box
and are seriously contemplating bringing home a second. There is a spot on the ocean where you can
get cell phone coverage (you can’t anywhere else around Coffman Cove—not a bad
thing, we think!), so Chris phoned up his buddy Steve and made arrangements to
have him take the 2nd box “off our hands” if we brought it back…No
objections were made.
Even when
our bait was all gone, I didn’t want to come in—I’m sooooo addicted to being on
that boat!! I talked Chris into a slow
ride back, listening to our audio book—yay!!!
We saved
room for our dinner and still managed to overstuff once again—dessert was a hot
chocolate brownie creation that I drool thinking about as I type
this—YUM!! We figure our next vacation
better be to a fat farm!
Advantage: Darcie
So there are
advantages and disadvantages to being the only female in a group of fishing
guys at a lodge, naturally. One of the
disadvantages is I feel like these guys are “watching” themselves because I’m
present—what they say, scratch, do, etc…--and were probably looking forward to
hanging out with other guys and not feeling all these obligations with me
around—ugh! And I hate that part because
I don’t like making people uncomfortable.
But my personality doesn’t make it easy for me to put them at ease (I’m
not loud and boisterous and cracking jokes all the time, etc.), even though I
find myself trying—maybe too hard sometimes (like laughing extra loud at some
joke). The flip side advantage to this
though is that not showing your “hand” so to speak, puts one in the position of
letting them sweat a little (hey, they’re guys and they have it easy peeing on
a boat all day, I’m due!), and then surprising them perhaps with an unexpected
something. This happened tonight after
dinner because the New York guys were talking about there being no sheep on
Prince of Wales Island and then one of them commented that he had lots of sheep
on his land. Mike threw out one of his
zingers to the effect that it “must have attracted a lot of local boys” whereby
the guys laughed heartily then a couple of them looked nervously in my
direction to see what my “take” was. I
purposely looked sorta blank-eyed like I didn’t get it so they could relax
about it, I was hoping. But then I
couldn’t help myself later when the guys were giving Mike a hard time about
spending too much time alone sometimes.
I got in, “Yeah, and he doesn’t even have any sheep!” Surprise factor works every time—Ha-ha,
guys!! I think they were a little more
relaxed after that.
Chris
decided to go fishing at a river or lake after dinner and I had decided to
shower and chill at the cabin before turning in—and that was even BEFORE Mike
said, “Better take your bug spray—it’ll be really bad there!” Buzz kill for me!! No problem for Sir Preuitt though—who still
continues to amaze me with his natural bug immunity. We both were happy with our choices and slept
great once again…
8/22/14—Friday
After
sleeping like babies, we were ready to get back on the boat on our LAST
day. What a GREAT vacation!! Amazing weather again today…great views, and
3 halibut fights worth a lot of memories!!!
Hated to come back in but we eventually had to—aghghghgh!!! We got back to the lodge, after a
drive-about, to pack up and get ready for dinner. We’ve been whining about having to leave—oh
well…mope, mope, mope. Prime rib for
dinner—that’ll help ease the pain (and it did NOT disappoint)!
8/23/14—Saturday
We said our
goodbyes and flew to Ketchikan on a float plane—another fun plane ride!! Got ourselves across on the ferry to the
airport in the company of John, one of the “New York” guys, although he was
from Ohio—that was really pleasant (what a bunch of neat folks, all the way
around), and we boarded on time for Seattle, had a bite to eat and headed home
with no problems…Chris was bragging about all the “problem-freeness” on the
Thrifty shuttle and I shushed him so as not to jinx anything…too late…
Well, ALMOST No Problems!!
There we
were in 90-degree heat, anxious to get our 2 boxes of mostly frozen halibut
back to Salem, and the fob key to our Prius wouldn’t work. We had some sweaty adventures there at
Thrifty (how to get in manually, where to find the battery, how to jump this
thing), but lucked into having a driver who was a Prius expert and helped
educate us on how to jump start it (because, of course, it’s not typical). After figuring out what blew up the 12-volt
battery (left an internal light on—my bad!!) we were finally able to get going,
get home, and distribute gift halibut we couldn’t get into our freezer.
We STILL
remarked on how basically pain-free this Coffman Cove trip was for us and are
contemplating how we do it next year.
