Alaskan Lodge Adventure

One of the other tours my company offers is called "The Alaskan Lodge Adventure." It is a Seafood Feast held at the Silver King Lodge on Grant Island. You have to take a bus out to get on a boat and then go to the island and see sights along the way. I had never been on that tour, so Candi had me go, and I could take Dan along as well. As it turned out, it was a nice day.

We started out on the dock with passengers from the Radiance of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ship. This was our driver, Aymee.

Aymee took us out north to the Clover Pass Resort. Once there we could grab some rain jackets, pants, stocking caps and gloves just in case it was cold and rainy (in Ketchikan??). They supply these things because the boat we were to go on had a top, but open sides.

As I'd said, we were supposed to go on this boat. However, when the Coast Guard came for the usual inspection, someone left all the switches on and the boat had dead batteries. So they divided us all up into a couple of smaller fishing boats.

That's Dan and me sitting at the bow of the boat.

We were heading out to Grant Island and the Silver King Lodge, but first a quick stop at Eagle Island. There is an eagle's nest there and a pair of eagles. Did you know that eagles mate for life?

The eagle is sitting in the tree top just right of center and the nest is to his right. You might have to zoom in to see them.

Here's a little bit closer shot of one of the eagles.

One thing that they do, to ensure that we get great pictures of the eagles, is feed them. Now, this is not illegal. It just makes for some amazing pictures that we probably wouldn't get otherwise. The guide tosses frozen herring out into the water near the boat, and the eagles swoop down and snatch the fish out of the water.

This one just grabbed his fish out of the water right in front of us.

You can go ahead and zoom in on this eagle to get a better view of her.

We had to keep moving if we wanted to finish the tour and get back in time for "all aboard."

But wait, there's a whale over there!

This particular whale has been around Clover Pass for a while. In fact, he has been coming back year after year. Our guide said they have recognized him and named him Patches due to his tail. Pretty good name for him, don't you think?

One more picture of the whale and we must be on our way. We would probably just like sit here for hours watching these magnificent animals.

 

Here we are, arriving at the Silver King Lodge. We tied the boats to the dock and headed up to the lodge for our Seafood Feast.

This is the outdoor dining room where we will have our feast. They cover the round tables with plastic and then newspapers. When the seafood boil is ready, they dump the food on the tables and everyone just grabs what they want.

There is Dungenous crab, shrimp, mussels, clams, andouille sausage, pearl onions, garlic, red potatoes and little ears of corn, all boiled with special seasonings. As you can see, they just dump all contents onto the table.

I did my best.

That's what's left of my feast!

All finished

Time to bid the Lodge "Good-bye!"

A beautiful area

An elk at the Lodge

Just one of many carvings around the Lodge