In Like a Lion

I was down at the harbor the other day looking for something interesting to photograph. It was a drop dead beautiful day, flat calm out on the water and as you can see the sun was out. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, thinking that maybe spring was on the way. I don't know why I allow myself these delusions. The next day, March 1, the weather had turned; we had about an inch of snow and the wind was howling. When I was a kid there was a saying about March- In like a lion out like a lamb. You never hear those old sayings any more- probably because they aren't true, or maybe people aren't as gullible as they were when I was growing up. Anyway, it hasn't been very accurate since I've been in Alaska. Usually March comes in like a lion and goes out like a bear, with the time in between kind of like a rabid fox. I'm especially unhappy with the weather right now because of the boat being out of the water. I have some work to do on it that requires that I lay on the ground, which is frozen and lumpy. I don't like lumpy anytime that I have to lay on it, but especially not when it's frozen. I don't know which is worse, laying on frozen lumpy ground or laying on lumpy wet ground, which of course is what I'll get when it warms up. It's kind of like being offered the choice between getting hit in the head with a hammer or getting hit in the head with a lead pipe- either way you're going to get hit in the head and it's not going to be fun. How come the options aren't ever like- catching huge numbers of large red king salmon and making big bucks or catching huge numbers of giant halibut and making big bucks? Ahh well...

  As you can see from the top picture, I have once again managed to sneak a shot of my favorite mountain. It just looks so majestic. It's the one regret that I have- that I never climbed to the top of it. At this stage of my life I don't think it will ever happen. Maybe someday if I have untold numbers of bucks with nothing better to do I'll charter a helicopter and have them drop me off up there- of course then I'd have to get down which would present  a challenge all of it's own.

  The king crab season ended a week or so ago, so all the boats unloaded their pots for storage- you can see them on the dock in the bottom picture. I never did hear how the season went, but it didn't last very long so I assume it went well. I wanted to go on one of the boats and try to get a picture of some of the crabs, but by the time I thought of it, they were all untied and pulling away from the dock. Great timing huh? Maybe next year. Those pots are really heavy- six or seven hundred pounds. Twice I've been fishing in the bay and snagged one. Once the fluke of my halibut anchor got caught right in the corner of the pot where the lid fastens down. I couldn't have done that on purpose if I'd tried for a year, but somehow, fishing in fourty fathoms of water with no idea of what was on the bottom,I managed to snag a seven hundred pound pot that someone had lost years ago. That's like someone trying to thread a needle blindfolded using a remote control arm while you're in another room. I ended up losing the anchor- the pot was just to  heavy to deal with. What are the odds of that happening though? I've mentioned before, if you ever see me in Vegas and I'm like at the roulette wheel, if I bet on the black, be sure to bet on the red. It's a guaranteed win for you.