Here I am in the cold.
Finally I am on the island of St Paul. St Paul is a tourist destination with a decent “hotel” that has comfortable sleeping rooms near the airport. In the summer hundreds of people come to St Paul for bird watching and later in the year many people come for seal watching. There is also a large herd of 500+ reindeer on the island but it is hard to see them because the native Alaskans on the island are allowed to hunt them for food as well as the seals. Again on this island I found the sea bird species to be the same as other places but the difference is that the birds are huge and very aggressive.
Company docks where the crab boats came in.
In addition to the above mentioned wildlife there is an abundance of Blue Arctic Foxes, just adorable little creatures.
The main claim to fame for human activities is the crab fishing. If you have watched very many episodes of Discovery Channels “Deadliest Catch” you will have seen some of the crab boats come in to unload their catch in St Paul. The reason I was there along with a large crew of carpenters and laborers was to remodel an old bunk house and do some refurbishing of the existing plant and bunkhouse. Although we were there through the king crab season, we were actually getting ready for the opilio crab season in the spring of 2008. Opilio crab is commonly know as snow crab. The state issued quota for opis, as the locals call them, was the largest in many years and 3 of the largest seafood processers had joined forces and combined their quotas and were going to process all of the quota at the plant in St. Paul while sharing the expenses.
"Deadliest Catch" star the Time Bandit
I have a short video of the king crab processing. The link is shown as the last photo in the normal TB way. Take a look!
We had a pretty good time while we were there. There was a package beer and wine store and a nice bar. We had a huge Halloween party there and I was one of the costume judges and had a great time. Unfortunately I was also the designated driver of the plant’s van so I had to cool it a little!
Google for more information on the tourist activities available on St Paul Island but it is a place that I will go back to for a holiday in the future. I am going to write this blog mostly about human activities and write one more blog about the wildlife on St. Paul because I have so many photos of wildlife. So watch for my blog on St Paul Wildlife.
