Homer, Alaska - Halibut Fishing

Today is the big day. We are going to fish for halibut. Homer is supposed to be the halibut fishing capital of the world. When we head out from the dock, it's like all the boats are in a race to get to the hot spots for halibut.


We get our instructions from the crew and we are ready to fish. Men have 4 pound weights on their lines. Women have 3 pound weights. It was raining when we first started to fish, but it stopped raining in about an hour.


In the first three places where we stopped to fish, all I caught where sharks. They were all calling me the shark lady. I was beginning to think I wasn't going to catch a halibut. But, Grant and I each caught about 7 halibut. The limit is 2 per day. Both of us caught our limit. The rest we threw back. They were all about 14 to 18 pounds each. Sometimes halibut are more than 200 pounds. Don't know how I'd reel one of those in. I had a really sore arm at the end of the day as it was.


The charter boat filleted the fish for us. Then they packed it, froze it, and Fedexed it to Kristin's house for us. We will have a lot of halibut to eat when we get home.


We plan to tour Homer on Saturday and head back to Solid Rock Bible Camp tomorrow night.

Solid Rick Bible Camp - Soldotna, AK (Work Day 4)

After work today, we broke camp and headed for Homer where we camped on the beach for the night. As we drove into the Homer Spit Harbor, the following sight greeted us.


It is so beautiful, with the glaciers, mountains, and volcanoes in the background. It is raining, so the picture is a bit gray, but it was still very beautiful.


Early tomorrow morning, we are going fishing for halibut on a charter boat.

From Aug 5

Solid Rick Bible Camp - Soldotna, AK (Work Day 3)

Grant is working with two other men on the electrical wiring, insulation, and sheetrock for a new building. Two other men are working on trim molding for doors and windows in other buildings. Grant's team finished the electrical wiring today and started the insulation. In Alaska, they don't use insulation with a vapor barrier. Instead they use insulation without a vapor barrier and apply visqueen after. There are some other things that are different from building codes that Grant is used to. I continue on the envelopes for a mailing at about 150 envelopes a day. There are 1500 envelopes. It is slow and tedious.


I am behind in my blogging again, but hope to catch up today.

Solid Rock Bible Camp - Soldotna, AK (Work Day 2)

We didn't take any pictures today. I bet you're glad. Grant continued working on electrical wiring today. I continued working on the mailing. After lunch, YOU know what I decided to do. I decided to catch up on my blog. Hope I didn't overwhelm you too much. Hopefully, I will keep up from here on out. Grant is exhausted this evening. I think we will be hitting the hay a little early tonight. It has rained off and on every day since we have been here.

Solid Rock Bible Camp - Soldotna, AK (Work Day 1)

Today is our first day of work. Grant went to work in the Chuck Wagon Hotel building on the electrical wiring. I worked in the office on a huge mailing. In the afternoon, I did our laundry. After dinner we met with the other SOWERS to play a card game called “Fruit Basket”. It’s kind of fun and good for a large group of players. We had 9 people playing. We like games and we had a good time.

Soldotna, AK

It was Sunday and we went to church. Then we decided to drive up the Kenai Spur Highway to the Capt Cook State Recreation Area. There were lots of views of the Cook Inlet. We looked for agates on the beach. We could see the volcanoes in the distance across the inlet, but the clouds were nestled at the top of the volcanoes so they were hard to capture in a picture. On the way back we passed many oil refineries, and oil rigs - including lots of off shore oil rigs.


We spent some time in Kenai at the Russian Orthodox Church exhibits at the museum and a walk through town to see old town Kenai and the Russian Orthodox Church buildings still in use today. The church has a priest. We went to a gift shop near the church. The woman in charge of the gift shop is Indian, and she is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.


When we came back to camp we decided to drive around the Solid Rock Bible Camp, where we are working here in Soldotna to check out the facilities. We took some pictures of the Chuck Wagon Camp where Grant will be working.


Devotions are at 7:30am tomorrow, then breakfast, and off to work.

Soldotna, AK - Trailer Repairs

When we got to Soldotna, we discovered that we had taken a rock to the 2" pipes under the trailer that carry water to the gray water line. All of our gray water was running out onto the ground. God is good. He knew just what we would need when we got here and provided. We were assigned a camp site with our name on it in the camping area at Solid Rock Bible Camp. You will never guess what was lying on the ground in the camp site that we were assigned. It was a 5" length of 2" pipe, exactly the size pipe we needed to fix the gray water line. In addition, when Grant was packing up to come here, he put in a short bladed hand saw, that he was surprised that he brought, because he wouldn't have thought he had need of it, which was the tool he needed to repair the pipe as well.

We went to town Saturday morning to get the replacement 2" rubber elbows with clamps. He found just what he wanted and along with the 2" pipe from the camp site, he was able to repair the gray water line in short order. Thank you Lord.