Hello from Southeast Alaska,
Our good friend Mike Pepper recently sent me a sensational photo book recounting the week he spent on the Adventurous last April. In the book Mike wrote a masterfully worded excerpt describing his experience. I felt like it was worth passing along. Please take the time to read and enjoy.
Thank you Mike! See you in the Spring!
Steelhead provide the canvas for a painting of something more than mere sport fishing. Like the fish, we find ourselves drawn to a place that marks an annual rebirth of something mystical. A migration that renews the soul, the flow of laughter and camaraderie washing our spirit clean like the clear waters running over the gravel that marks a place of annual rebirth. A ritual solstice announcing a new cycle of the calendar; a sunrise shared with Orcas, a sunset with special friends, fishing, yes, but that soul reflected in a steelhead’s eye is a different person from the day before, expanded, enriched and blessed to be HERE.
No doubt, a fresh chrome and a double striped buck on the same morning make for a spectacular painting on their own; blue steel cheeks, clear tail or red splashed bright, the fish are extraordinary. But this is Alaska, onboard the Adventurous with a group that challenges all your assumptions of “living large”. Bears, whales, great food and drink, life on the boat, music, scenery tattered man card, fresh crab and shrimp, shooting icebergs, dragging boats, a refreshing dip in the ocean sunrises (bleary eyed) and sunset anchorages……all these are living proof that multiple universes exist and sometimes you get to transport between life and the TRULY LIVING.
Mike Pepper, sometime in the fall, 2014