Weirdest Day Of Fishing Ever!

I've heard of salmon jumping into boats but . . Four black-tailed Sitka deer were pulled from the icy waters of Stephens Passage, Alaska, by a group of locals on Tom Satre's 62-foot charter vessel. The four juvenile Sitka black-tailed deer swam directly toward the boat.

Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at the humans on board. Clearly, the bucks were distressed. With help, the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals came willingly onto the boat. Once onboard, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering.

Here the rescued bucks rest on the back of Tom Satre's boat, the Alaska Quest. All four deer were transported to Taku Harbor. Once the group reached the dock, the first buck that had been pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back, then leapt into the harbor, swam to shore, and disappeared into the forest. After a bit of prodding and assistance from the humans, two others followed suit, but one deer needed more help.......

Here he is being transported by Tom Satre:

Tom, Anna and Tim Satre help the last of the "button" bucks to its feet.

They did not know how long the deer had been in the icy waters or if there had been others who did not survive. The good Samaritans (humans) describe their experience as "one of those defining moments in life." I'm sure it was for the deer, as well.

Surprised Kitty

Karen's Gatorland Birthday Adventure

Our friend Karen is about to have a birthday. And, Karen being Karen, she wanted to get a bunch of friends together and spend time with them. Of course, being Karen, that means quite the adventure! So, using all the birthday favors she had, Karen got all her friends together at...Gatorland!

As you can see, Karen even made a new friend!

Of course, Elizabeth likes neither gators or snakes...which are in abundance at Gatorland, but, being a trooper, she decided that it was worth putting up with all the crazy reptiles if she could hang out with her friends. And, not to be outdone, Elizabeth even mustered the courage to pet a gator herself!

As you can tell from the name (and the pictures) Gatorland had quite a few gators around. But they've also got quite a few other critters, too. Snakes (even poisonous ones, but you can't pet those), turtles, birds, bullfrogs, deer, goats, iguanas, and both gopher and Galapagos tortoises. And we got to see them all!

On of the more fascinating things, to me, was walking along the boardwalk and seeing all the gators just swimming around and then, suddenly, there's a big ol' crocodile sunning itself in the middle of them. Everyone was just minding their own business, doing their own thing. It was pretty cool!

The other great thing about the day was that we got to spend it with some friends we haven't gotten to hang out with much in awhile. Hopefully this Gatorland adventure will change that, but even if it doesn't, it was so much fun being able to spend time with Karen, Chad, Susan, Shae, Debbie, and Becky, and then even more friends later at Habeneros for dinner!

And, as the day went by, Elizabeth was able to make a new friend from the animal kingdom (although it wasn't a gator!)

Elizabeth found an aviary nestled in with all those reptilian creatures and got to play with a Lorikeet. These were some of the more beautiful birds I've ever seen, and, if it weren't for the cat, I think Elizabeth just might be wanting a new pet!

So that's what we've done so far on our Labor Day weekend. And tomorrow the big plans are to do nothing, nothing at all.