We left the Buskin River after I filleted my one and only, and Bigfoot and Elkhorn headed south to a beautiful overlook on the other side of Woman’s Bay. Come to find out, this is a popular pull off because for many residents, this is the first area they can receive a cell signal. So they stop here, using their vehicle as a “phone booth”, make their phone calls, check email, order from Amazon, then continue about their business.
As we pulled in to the overlook, there was a Z71 pickup truck with a woman in the driver seat, already parked there. Her head looking down at her phone, so I knew she was in her phone booth. Bigfoot and Elkhorn pulled in on either side of her Z71 and gave her some distance (but hoping she might move).
We just got Bigfoot and Elkhorn settled in to our new home with a gorgeous view, I walked over in front of the Z71 to talk to Delores by the Elkhorn, when we hear a women’s voice from the truck, “Hey, y’all look like nice people, are you looking for a place to camp?” I told her sure, we are always looking for somewhere to go, and she replies well I have 20 acres down the road with a couple of fire rings and beach access your welcome to stay. Wow, how does this happen?
Okay, I’m thinking, what’s the catch? So now the four of us are standing next to the Z71 , talking to Julie through her rolled down window. She assures us, she is not creepy or a serial killer (remember Rusty?), and she had never done this before, but she said it just felt right. We all felt a good vibes emanating from this phone booth while Julie was searching her phone for pictures of her place to show us. Wow, awesome, good vibes indeed.
We get to chatting, and introducing ourselves and describing our journey. We told her we met Sam and Julie, thru Sam’s father in Chester, Montana, which of course she knows them. We told her we had dinner there last night, and Julie laughs and says, “well, I can one up that!” She gets out of her Z71 and quickly walks around her truck to the rear passenger door. She returns holding a 11 inch pyrex glass dish full of smoked king salmon she just finished making! She says take a hunk of this, get a big piece she says, as she describes how she brined and smoked this delicious smoked salmon candy that I wanted more of but didn’t want to push my luck. OMG that was delicious! We all really hit it off as we talked and laughed at the phone booth.
So, we exchange phone numbers, and she text me pictures of her property and how to get there. We told her we would be going that way tomorrow and we will check it out and let her know. We thanked her for the most delicious smoked salmon and she left. Wow, what a nice lady, and how generous, smoked salmon and place to camp, heck yeah. We are lucky.
We got our chairs out of the trucks and set them up for happy hour so we could enjoy this beautiful scenery of mountains, water, flowers, and a fox. What a FOX? Yep, we think this little guy smelled the salmon that we ate and apparently we had dropped some crumbs (inadvertently of course), that this sly Fox easily sniffed out. Foxy was a little a jumpy but really had no fear of us, which we all know is not good. Foxy stayed around us for some time, we think people are feeding him here which again is not good. After some time he consumed all the smells he could but he would have to conquer his appetite else where and he left us to admiring this awesome place called the Emerald Island.
The next day we SP at 1000 to head to Surfers Beach and checkout our new friends property. We arrive to Julie’s place and it is drop dead perfect. Level grass area with fire rings, a view of the beach all surrounded by huge cottonwood trees. Julie created an awesome “Alaskan” wedding venue within the cottonwood trees for her youngest son’s wedding. They cut trees into stumps for benches, and spread black sand for the center isle and leading up to a cottonwood tree decorated with fabric and flowers draped over the center stage where the bride and groom would acknowledge their vows.
Are we going to camp here, Heck YEAH! But now, I told Julie we would let her know our decision. No cell signal remember? Do we drive back the “phone booth” at the overlook? Come on, what would you do to leave a message? We decided to leave an Alaskan text message. I found a 2×6 board in the wood pile, and Ann Marie used a sharpie and wrote Julie a message, that we would return, (kinda like General MacArthur). We leaned the 2×6 board vertically against the fire ring and there ya go, an Alaskan text message.
Bigfoot led the way south with Elkhorn pulling up the rear as we drove the winding two lane road thru the emerald green of this beautiful island. As we descend down each hill there was a small river or a creek that we would pass over. At each of those bridges was sign stating not to fish on upstream of the bridge. This allows the salmon, for those that made it that far a chance to get to their final spawning ground.
We made a right toward the ocean to Surfers Beach. “Surfers” yeah okay, what is in a name anyways? Is the “Old River” really old? Is the St Lawrence Seaway really a saint? Think about this factoid…Well, because Kodiak is the northern most island from Hawaii, there is surfing here! The beach is trusted to have good surfing waves, as the wave frequency is very consistent for about 150 days/year. Well we are here for the view, walking the 3 mile beach, and a quiet place to camp on the black sand. Beautiful beach, with the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing against the smooth sand.
There were some surfers out there “hanging ten”. BTW, for all you non surfers out there, that “Cool” term means to ride a surfboard with all ten toes curled over the board’s front edge. Your welcome.
The sky’s were blue and the Alaskan sun was warm as we sat in our chairs overlooking this beautiful ocean, and guess what? We could see whales spouting! We could see them better with binoculars but we watched them all day long. In fact so long, we all got a sun burn on our face.
Ann Marie explored the beach picking up all those “sea” things that we pick up and really don’t need, but we feel like we have to take them home… Oh, wait, did I just say that? I meant, Ann Marie picked up some more awesome shells, rocks, star fish, and sea kelp. Yep, I said it.
