Day 85 – June 27

A late-ish rise as we were very close to Homer and were staying here tonight. The beautiful view of the night before had become obscured by a thick bank of fog in Cook Inlet. After breakfast we walked into the business section of town to visit the Pratt Museum. Although smaller than many of the museums we have visited in the past months this museum was very well done with great displays on natural history as well as local culture, very much a small Anchorage Museum. There were full sized whale skeletons on display as well as those of bear and many other mammals. Of particular interest was a comparison between the human hand and cetacean (whale) flippers. As cetaceans are believed to be mammals that returned to the sea the similarity in bone numbers and construction was striking.

We were looking for a good place for fish and chips with local fresh halibut and the very friendly volunteer at the museum directed us to Duncan House, a short walk away. Although the chips were pedestrian the fish was fresh and moist and only lightly covered in a crisp tempura like batter that was nicely complemented with homemade tartar sauce and coleslaw. The folks from the restaurant in Monterrey where we had the dreadful fish and chips should come up here to study how to do it.

We walked back to the BRT and geared up to bicycle down to the Homer Spit. Homer has dedicated bike lanes along the highway but they are a bit treacherous as they seemed to be mostly used to store the sand and gravel that is spread on the roads in winter time. Once we got to the spit however there was a well kept dedicated bike path for most of the 4.3 miles of the spit.

We stopped at the ‘fishing hole’ a small lagoon in the spit with a narrow breach to the ocean. The lagoon is stocked with salmon that return to the lagoon as their home and it’s fished heavily by tourists and locals alike. Next to the lagoon was a cleaning station where fishermen were cleaning their halibut, caught from one of the many hundreds of boats moored in the adjacent marina. There was an Alaska Department of Fish and Game employee there sampling some of the recreational catch, taking measurements and collecting ear bones, when possible, for ageing data – very familiar work for Diane who spent some time talking with her.

We locked up our bikes and walked into a number of the many small shops that lined both parts of the lower end of the spit. We picked up a couple of things, including a small piece of polished mammoth tusk that looked like wood burl. It is very cool to hold a piece of an animal that had lived here so many years ago.

The return uphill bike ride was made even more taxing by the strong head winds. We had a light supper, the fish and chips of late afternoon still occupying some prime digestive real estate. The fog bank that had persisted all day was slowly starting to recede allowing the tops of the mountains to float in the air. As the night wore on the ribbon of fog continued to thin until, by the time we were ready to go to bed, it had dissipated, just the reverse pattern from home.

Day 86 – June 28

We were heading for Seward so after a quick Face Time conversation with Molly, who was conveniently on her lunch break, we were on the road by 9:30.

In my mind our first stop was going to be at Deep Creek to finish the fishing that I had started two days earlier. However as Diane drove I spent some time reading the very convoluted fishing regulations and became uncertain as to whether the section of river I wanted to fish was opened. When we pulled into the parking lot there was a park employee trimming bushes and so I asked him only to find out that a ‘special order’ overriding the regulations had been put in place and the river was closed. He did tell me however that a good spot to fish was where the Crooked Creek flowed into the Kasilof River. As this guy was also the park host for the Crooked River State Recreation area he could give me clear directions as to where to fish.

Pulling into the parking lot at the state park it was clear from the attire of most people there, waders and dip nets, that this was indeed a popular fishing spot. I walked a trail down to the river and the shore of the Kasilof was lined with fishermen of every size, shape and age. I have been surprised at how many women fish in Alaska, either alone or with their husbands and boyfriends. Fishing seems to be much more of a family recreational activity here than at home.

However as I watched more closely from the riverbank it became clear that this was just a variation on the kind of fishing that we had seen in Anchorage. Basically the technique is to stand on the bank or just at the rivers edge, with a spinning rod that has about 8 feet of line spooled out and has a heavy lead weight and a bare hook with a piece of fluorescent tape tied to it, and to plunk, not cast, but plunk the hook and sinker into the fast flowing water about six feet in front of you, wait 5 seconds and repeat, repeat, repeat. This was some of the ugliest fishing I had ever seen. As I watched for about 20 minutes the only fish I saw hooked were on the far side of the river where three fishermen had positioned themselves on a sandbar after boating across the river. I returned to the BRT and we continued our backtracking from Homer towards Seward under cloudy skies and light rain.

At one point, at a bend in the road north of Anchor Point, we passed through the most westerly point of our trip. From now on, at least geographically, we are headed home.

The rest of the drive to Seward was uneventful but we had the feeling that the cloud was obscuring beautiful scenery. From Jane and Ike’s blog we knew where they had stayed, just south of town, but being Friday we arrived to find that the campground was full. We headed back into town looking for the municipal campground that was along the waterfront. We found one small park that was full but were directed to another larger site down the road where we got the second last site. The remaining option was parking in the local ball field. Although unserviced ($15) we had not dry camped for a couple of days so our reserves were fine and we only planned a one night stay in Seward.

Once we had a confirmed our accommodations we marked our site taken by leaving a chair in the middle, the accepted protocol, and drove the short distance to town to walk around and view the sites. Seward is much smaller than Homer and effectively has one short Main Street. However Seward boasts the Alaska Sealife Centre where we planned to spend the following morning. We had supper at the Seward Brewing Company. The food was good but in our opinion the beer lack commitment. The amber ale was thin and the stout lacked the ‘now you got a mouthful of something buddy’ courage that for me marks a great stout or porter.

We returned to the BRT for a relaxing night with Diane doing her exercises while I dusted off my ukelele, which I have been neglecting for a while, to resume my self instruction.