Homer, Alaska - fishing and bears

 Hello!  We are about to head home tomorrow ~ we are excited to share our experiences in Homer, AK.

We arrived on Saturday and had two activities planned, fishing and a bear experience.  The weather was a little better than it has been, we were glad about that.

Homer sits on the end of the Kenai Peninsula - on the opposite side from Seward, along Kachemak Bay. As we walked along the beach Carsten was skipping stones.... he is quite good at it!

 

Across the bay is Grewingk Glacier

This landform sticking out into the Bay is Homer Spit, a 4.5 mile piece of land.  There are shops, places to stay, restaurants and the Harbor on the spit.  The tide in this bay can vary as much as 30 feet.

This rainbow, after all the rain, was a welcome sight.

This is the view from our place.

Next up, on Sunday we did a 2 hour wildlife boat tour.  We went to a rookery to see seagulls, puffin (yes, they are real) and other birds.  We saw harbor seals, otters and a bald eagle.  We spent some time looking for a humpback whale that had been spotted but never saw it.  oh well.

Driving around town we came across this lovely lady.

How about some fishing!??!?!?!?!

We had enjoyed some success in Seward, as you previously read, but Homer is the Halibut capital of Alaska.  We had to see what this was all about.

This was my "under 29 inch" halibut.  The limit is one under-29 inches and one any size.  I caught my "big" one pretty early on.  After that, when I would get a big pull on my line I would hand it off to someone who had not caught their big one to reel in.  Of course, the one I hand off was bigger than mine ... but later it all evened out when Jack handed me the reel to get my small halibut and I pulled in a nice King Salmon. :)

The crew (Clay and Jonathan) were fantastic.  This is the group that we fished with ... and all of our catch!

Carsten and I caught 2 halibut each (the limit), 3 silver salmon each (also the limit).  I caught 2 King Salmon (the limit) and Carsten added a colorful rockfish.  54 pounds once fileted!  We will be eating well for the next few months!

Carsten and the other guys decided this was a good idea - halibut in the mouth.  NO KISSES FOR YOU CARSTEN!

Highly recommend Homer Ocean Charters - nice comfortable boat, great crew!

Today we finally did the bear excursion.  Ya'll, this is a story....

the tides and beach access make it a little different to launch the boat.  the passengers and crew board the boat via this ladder.  

then this big-wheeled tractor hauls the boat down to the shore to launch it.

This excursion went across Cook Inlet and it was a rough 1.5 hour ride.  I feel like I have been rode hard and put up wet.  It was truly an ass kicking!  No way to sit outside, too many people for inside.  The good news was that everyone was rolling their eyes and/or grimacing together.... 

Eventually we made it across and were in Lake Clark National Park.  This park is 4 million acres.  y'all, this is just a bit smaller than Connecticut.  It has zero roads.  It is only accessible by boat or plane.  There are two volcanos Mt. Iliamna and Mt. Redoubt (which erupted in 1989 and again in 2009).  These volcanos are part of the "Ring of Fire" whose volcanos include some in Hawaii.

The idea here was to see some brown bears (known inland as Grizzlies). We knew that we would be walking in some tidal flats to see the bears ... who really knew what that would entail.  They outfitted us with hip-waders and boots (aka Alaskan sandals) so that we could stay dry.

The approach to the shore.  Notice, there is no dock here either.  So we all just sort of slid off the boat into the water.  Well, I say all of us.  One dude, who was probably 80, decided to more or less jump in.  He went under and his hip-waders filled up with cold water.  He got back on the boat and did not come for the walk.  Ugh.

First we were walking on the beach and that was not too bad.  One other person, married to the 80-year old wet dude, returned to the boat because the pace and terrain were a bit much for someone her age.  Double ugh.

And then there were 5.....

This was one of the deeper areas we walked through.

That brown lump on the ground behind us on the left side of the picture was the bear we found sleeping.  We were about 20 yards from him.

Tidal areas are intermittently water and mud, but mostly MUD.  This was a world-class workout.  It felt like my boots weighed 30 pounds.  Kendell (one of the ladies on the tour) got sucked in up to her knee.  It was a real challenge to get her out of the muck!  I appreciated her great sense of humor! I fear if I had been the only woman with a bunch of gung-ho types I might have murdered someone and fed their body to the bears!

Da Bear!

Bear Tracks!

Bear Slumber Party place.

There is no real way to describe the vastness of this place.  This picture shows the 6 of us walking the tidal flats.  It was taken from a drone.

Lake Clark National Park is gorgeous!

So, we saw some bears and had a world-class workout but the service was the worst I have ever had on any excursion anywhere.  There was no head on the boat (good luck holding your pee for 7 hours), too many passengers on the boat, no information given about bears, no help on the walk - we patrons helped each other but the guide was ZERO help.  I was honestly wondering what I had paid for by the end... and was pretty mad about the whole thing.  I totally get that you cannot control somethings - the rough seas and the proximity of the bears but ... you can at least be helpful ... and this guy was useless.

That all being said, we have had a great time exploring Alaska and will certainly return!

See you in Houston!

Sheri & Carsten