Five Days on Water

So while in Homer, which will likely be our last time close to the ocean while in Alaska, we had five consecutive days which involved travel over water. The first two days were actually on one trip; the ferry ride from Kodiak Island back to Homer, which was an overnight trip. The rest of the day back from Kodiak Island was spent recovering. We had to catch up on a mostly sleepless night on the ferry and our traveling companions were recovering from their grueling bear-watching trip. If you would like to see some of their pictures from that close-encounter, you can see them here on Flickr.

On our second day back, we book a boat tour to see some wildlife in Kachemak Bay and then to the town of Seldovia, which can only be reached by boat. We spent about 2 1/2 hours in Seldovia, had lunch, and walked around this very quaint and photogenic community.

The next day, we booked another boat ride across the Kachemak Bay to the Island Peninsula (island during high tide and peninsula during low tide) and the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies. There we took an island hike and studied a lot of the local flora and topology, and got a look into some of the tide pools on the edge of the bay. The hike was a little grueling, as it had some steep up and down hill climbs and many large roots and logs to avoid. Also, the amount of black bear scat, rife with blueberry husks, we had to step over was a problem.

The third day was our fishing adventure. Ellyn said she wanted to try a fishing trip and Homer describes itself as the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. So we booked a fishing trip out of the Homer Spit. This was not so much a photo trip as the previous two. We had a two hour boat ride out to the mouth of Cook Inlet, where we set anchor and then started fishing. The hardest thing about it was the heavy sinkers they had on the lines. Also, we were in 200 feet of water, so, once you got a bite, there was a lot of line to reel in. We discovered later in the fishing, that you probably did not have to put the line all the way to the bottom, because a lot of the fish were hanging out right near the surface of the water. Between the four of us we came away with 43 pounds of fish meat.

Kodiak Island by Land

So after Ken and Martha headed to the Katmai for their tour, we settled in at the B&B and started doing some touring around the island by car. The weather was not nice to us the first couple of days, as it was cloudy, drizzly, and cool, but we still headed out to see what there was to see. The owner of the B&B had told us about an eagle nest at the fairgrounds nearby, so we stopped by to check it out. The nest is huge and takes up most of the top half of the tree it is in. We could not see any birds in the nest, we quickly noticed the two adults in the top of a tree nearby. Then we spotted two juveniles on some stumps near the ground. They would fly from one stump to another near the ground but never got too high up. The adults kept calling in their direction, perhaps trying to encourage them to get higher off the ground.

We picked Jordy up from the kennel where he was staying while on Kodiak and took him out for a day of touring. We would have liked to do this more, but he was staying with a family and it was hard to get ahold of them sometime, it wasn’t like he was at a business where there would always be someone there for a drop off or pick up, so this one day was it, until we picked him up on the last day before returning to Homer. There were two days at the B&B when we were the only ones staying there, and we probably could have had him there in the evening, but we didn’t think about doing that until it was too late. As it was, he seemed to do fine where he was, and he was very happy to see us when we picked him  up.

On the third day there, we woke up to sunshine, and we knew would not be able to squander it. Now there are only so many roads to drive on on Kodiak Island, and one of them leads to a bay on the northern side of the island called Anton Larsen Bay, where there are a couple of boat ramps. So we headed up that way thinking it would be nice to put the kayaks in. We packed a lunch, and did just that. The water was nice and calm, the sea birds were active on the water, including Puffins, Kittiwakes, Oyster catchers, Pigeon Guillemots and Arctic Terns. We also saw a couple of otters and even jelly fish. It was one of our most unique kayaking trips so far.

The next day the weather was even better, so we headed to the most remote part of the island you can get to by car. Here is Fossil Beach, where you can walk along the cliffs among the tide pools and look for fossils which have dropped out of the sandstone cliffs. Ellyn actually came away with some nice pieces and we saw a lot of life in the tide pools. The only problem was that it was a bit smelly with all of the rotting kelp on the rocks. Afterwards, we got our beach chairs out of the car and ate or packed lunch while we watched some kids skinny-dipping on the surf. Yow! That water could not have been more than 50 degrees. There is also a rocket launch complex out there, where they launch satellites into polar orbit.

There rest of our days on Kodiak were mostly wet, but we still tried to see what we could. We went to the Fisheries Research Center on Near Island and found a wonderful aquarium and touch-tank there. We also went to the Alutiiq Museum, where they have many displays about the Native Americans in Alaska. One of the most interesting things there was their information on petroglyphs found on a remote part of Kodiak Island.

Even when the weather is cloudy and damp, we were struck with how green Kodiak Island is, likely because of all the rainfall they get there each year. Usually, it comes later in the year, and usually the weather is a bit warmer than it was while we were there, but it was still a really nice place to spend some time, and not many people get a chance to spend any time there. Although our traveling companions got to see many Kodiak Bears on their tour of the Katmai Peninsula, we did get to see one bear while on Kodiak. He was in the road on our way to the B&B and we were able to get some quick pictures before he disappeared into the woods.

Kodiak Island Boat Tour

Our first full day on Kodiak Island had us up early (for us, 6:30 is early) and off on an 8:00 AM boat tour to Whale Passage. The weather did not bode well right out of the box, as it was very cloudy, foggy, and rainy as we headed to the boat harbor from our B&B. Most of the stuff we would be looking at would be down near the water, and we brought our rain gear, so it did not matter that much, but we would like to have some sun shine to help us get great pictures. Well, at least the water was not too rough, as we would be going mostly through sheltered areas, and the rain let up shortly after we got out onto the Gulf of Alaska.

Soon we were seeing sea birds, kittiwakes, puffins, and pigeon guillemots and were snapping up a storm. I thought that Ken, one of our traveling companions, had super photographic equipment, but two of the guys who came with us on the boat had Nikon D3s and two huge 200-400mm zoom lenses. They spent most of the trip sitting on the bow of the boat and, from the sounds of the shutters, probably took more than 2000 photos each. I thought I came back with a lot at 640. The boat’s captain was pretty good at being able to stealth up on the sea birds, so we were able to get closer than we had on other sight seeing trips. Also, this trip was just for this purpose, where as the others we had taken were mostly to see glaciers, so ocean life photos were just lucky.

As we got out into Whale Passage, the sky actually started to lighten up and we even got to see some blue sky off in the distance and the sun peeked through at us briefly. Strangely enough, although we were in Whale Passage, there were no whales sighted until we started out. Then we did spot one Humpback making its way slowly along the mouth of the passage and feeding lazily. It would float on the surface for a bit and then flute gently for a deeper dive. It did make some rolling motions later on and show its pectoral fins and slap its tail once.

We also saw some Dall’s Porpoises. We had seen them briefly on other tours but this group followed the boat longer than any of the other times. They are very difficult to catch on films as much more than a brief flash of black and white and a splash. Geoff took some video of them and then just pointed the camera over the side and took dozens of pictures as fast as the camera would take them. These are the best.

The stars of the show were the Sea Otters. We caught up with a large raft of them around a small rock island in the middle of Whale Passage and stayed with them for some time. They mostly seemed to be just relaxing and floating. We did not see much eating going on and we did not see any pups.

Finally, when we got back to the harbor, we visited with the Sea Lions who have taken over one of the docks there. They were a little vocal as we cruised around the dock but for the most part, they did not mind our passage. As we exited the boat and walked down the dock, the rain started coming down again. We went to dinner with Ken and Martha and then bid them a fun journey on their next adventure. They are off to the Katmai Peninsula for an expensive tour to see the Kodiak Bears feeding on salmon. We are staying in our B&B, relaxing, and we will go around the island to see whatever there is to see. If anything exciting happens, you will be able to read it here in a later post.

Seward’s Rainy Side

After a good start to our time in Seward, the weather turned miserable again. We were there for 5 days total, and 3 of them were pretty much rain. We did a couple of indoor things, but mostly just stayed in the RV. From Seward, we move on down the Kenai Peninsula to Soldotna and then on to Homer.

The one indoor thing we enjoyed in Seward was the Alaska Sea Life Center. Here they not only have aquariums with nice examples of Alaska sea life, but also rehabilitate injured marine mammals and birds, and return those to the wild that they can. We took their Behind the Scenes tour, which took us into their rehabilitation areas and showed us their labs and tracking center. And of course we had to make a visit to their sea bird enclosure and visit with the Puffins.

We tried to get out and see some of the far reaching areas of the Seward area. On the far side of Resurrection Bay is a repair facility for ships. It also looks like a bone yard for old ships which didn’t quite make it to repaired status.

We also investigated the northern side of the bay, south of Seward and found, not much. There is an RV park way out there, and some houses, but not much else. However, on the way back, we found a sea otter munching away happily on what appeared to be an octopus. It looked to be a very chewy meal.