[phuloi]

WHAT A GREAT TIME!
Wish you all could have been here...You missed a dandy of a party! I just woke up from a two hour power nap,after saying 'till we meet again' to Tom and Kath and James this morning as they headed south-T&K at about 7 and James a few hours later.
So...Thurs night I`m telling Tom and James not to worry and go ahead and get a couple of hours of sleep,as I have set my trusty,crusty 20 year old alarm clock for 0200 so we can get up and get to the charter boat on time.Good thing Tom awoke to answer a call of nature at 0230.A quick stop at the local store for a large coffee and we were off-at a speed well exceeding the legal speed limit trying to make up for the time lost due to my now retired alarm clock.Things were going along fine until a tribal cop on the little Skokomish Indian reservation took exception to our doing 65 in a 45 and cost us all the time that we had gained thus far.Luckily,time was all it cost cause your silver-tounged reporter talked us out of a ticket.At the time we were supposed to be getting on the boat,we were still 40 miles out.I called the charter outfit and pleaded my best shot-I lied and said we were 20 miles away and to hold the boat.At this point I really turned up the wick (80-90mph) and we wheeled in just as the deckhand was unlashing the bow line.To the very vocal cheers and jeers of the rest of the crew we jumped aboard and out in the blue Pacific we headed,amid lots of introductions and hugs and hand-shakes.
Sid won the "First to Chum" award,followed shortly thereafter by Chris.Sid was also the first to holler FISH ON! but found out that jellyfish don`t count.Fact is,fishing was pretty slow,but by the end of the day we caught enough fish to feed us all,and then some.
Friday found us all at my house in Sunny Sequim eatin steamed clams,oysters (raw,b-b-qed,fried,smoked),several variations of salmon,and even some yellow tailed rock fish that we had caught.We ate,talked,laughed and cried well into the night,and I hope everyone had a great a time being here as I had having everyone.
Kati and I love you all and I`m already looking forward to next year.
I`ll get some pictures up soon.