Homer/Seward

Second day in Homer, first day was fishing.  We camped on the Spit that day (a peninsula that runs out from Homer). Took a two hour nap and woke up with a hangover. Had to wash all of our clothes, coats, gloves, rain pants, and take two showers to get the stink off, then fell back into bed.

Got up later than we wanted, but felt better! Went Tidepooling, where Sandy had an issue with her camera, involving saltwater. May have to buy a new one…….. Went and saw “The Time Bandit” (from Discovery’s “Deadliest Catch”).

 Got to the Exit Glacier in the evening, but still got the hike in. We were able to get right up and touch the ice, got pictures. Oh, and we saw a Grizzly Bear!

 We stopped and watched this bear along side the road, and he worked his way right up along side Sandy’s door! He was about 5 feet away from the camper door, just eating weeds along the road.  He must have been 3 or 4 years old, not a real big guy yet. They stay with the mother until they are 2 years old, but this one was out of the house. Sandy thinks this one topped the Eagles. Oh, he was so cute………..!  

Set up camp just outside Exit Glacier National Park, at a trail head parking lot. BBQed some Halibut tonight, good stuff. I tried to attract some more bears with the BBQ fish, but no one showed up for dinner. Fixed a new drink that we learned on the 26 Glacier Cruise, The Klondike Bear, Hot Chocolate, half a shot of Baileys, half a shot of Irish Whiskey.  That goes down so smooooooooth……..

Got to Seward in time for a Geocache. Then went on the Kenai Fjords Cruise.  Saw whales (humpback), killer whales (Orcas), lots of different birds, more Glaciers. It was a 6 hour boat ride, but good information. After that we explored where they are fishing at the mouth of a small river. They are snagging the fish and coming out with limits. Sandy wants to try this, if we can find the time.

Then went up stream to a fish weir, where they are counting the fish as they swim upstream. This weir is like a fence across the stream, and only one little gate is open. The fish are all jumping, trying to get over the fence, only to get knocked back, some on the rocky shore, flopping around until they get back in the water, to try again. Back across the road before the weir, there is a traffic jam, fish all lined up in the water, waiting their turn to get up stream. Some had wounds from fish hooks down at the mouth of the river. The ones who make it through the gate end up in an elevator where they raise it up every 15 minutes to net the fish, count them, then release them on the high side of the fence. It’s like a little pond on the high side, and the fish are all resting before the next leg of their journey. You can see them packed in there just marking time in the current. I got to net the last one and release him in the pond. Very interesting! When the Salmon start up the river from salt water to fresh, their body changes as they mature sexually. The males get a real pronounced hook in their nose, and the female get rounder with eggs. The further up the stream they will change color to a bright red. They are not good to eat when this happens, their meat is all mushy. The fish spawn and then die. I hear the streams all skink with dead fish for a long time after that. The bears come along and just eat the heads and throw the rest away, they say the brains have the most fat and that is what the bears want to put on weight for winter. They are going to limit the amount of fish that can spawn so as not to put to much pressure on the up stream ecosystem. Remaining fish will be sold off to cannery for research funding. They had a whole tank of Coho Salmon fry that they will release soon. Coho are not native to this area, but a great sport fish that they are establishing. The fry are one year old fish about 4” long. Most Salmon go to sea for two years before coming back to die. Coho are ferocious eaters and will grow to full length (24” +) within one year, to come back to spawn.

Getting to bed early tonight, have a big hike tomorrow.

Homer and Halibut fishing

We checked out the Eagles this morning, they were all down on the beach dining on fish carcasses that had washed up. A leisurely drive to Homer got us in for Lunch. We explored the town, bought a tripod at Radio Shack, and got our stuff packed for the allnighter.  We had reservations with Alaska Coastal Marine for a two day trip.

We checked in at the boat and stowed our stuff in a bunk. Had a little safety briefing and off we went, three and a half hour run, about 50 miles down and around the Kenai Peninsula, about half way to Seward. It got pretty rough when we went around the Peninsula into open water. I won't tell you about bunch of Oil Rig guys who were on the boat with us, well maybe I will.  Nice guys, but the young ones were filing up with greasy KFC and beer when we started out.  After we hit the rough water, they were chumming over the side.  When we got set up for fishing it wasn't too bad, but windy and cold. It was a big boat, but there were 31 of us fishing and because we didn't want lines going under the boat we were all on one side, about 3 foot apart. We had about 3 coats on, ski gloves, and rain pants to cut the wind, it was tolerable. We started fishing at 7pm and fished all night until about 9am.

We didn't get anything before 3am, well Sandy got a starfish. We watched the sunset about 1am, but we could see the skyline all night long, it wasn't real black. About 3am the sun started lighting up the horizon, and the fish started biting! All during the night we had 3 deck hands baiting our hooks and helping out, but now we had the second Captain doing it by himself, although only about half of us die-hards were fishing. This poor guy was running his ass off, after a few hours he woke up the first Captain to help. Sandy and I got 20 to 30 pound fish and got our limit of 8 by 7am (limit of 2 per day, but we couldn't tell time at that late hour). One guy got two 100 pound fish!  Halibut can get up into the 300# range (but anything over 100# isn't too good to eat). They had a 4’X4’X4’ box on deck where they put the fish., by morning when they would throw a fish in, it would be flopping all around and the lid would be bouncing off.  It turned out to be a good day at sea.

Come to find out, this was the first overnight trip for this boat this year, so I think they were still figuring out where the big ones were. Homer is having a Halibut derby during the summer and they pay out for the biggest each month,  then a grand prize at the end, 186# was the record so far this year, last year was 347#.

One guy pulled up about a 6 foot Ling Cod, they couldn't keep it because it was not in season, but if it happed to jump in the boat, then it was OK. So they opened the door and tried to reel him in. He got half way in the boat and then spit out this smaller (18 inch) Grey Cod that the guy had hooked. So this Ling Cod had grabbed on and came up for the ride. Wild times!

The crew was good. Two kids had hired on with this trip, they worked hard but I don’t know if they made the cut. The first mate was a girl! And she was good. I told the Captain later that she deserved a raise. She was always right in the action and on the trip home she filleted a majority of the fish.. Now, I don’t know how they do it, but sharp knives on a rolling, fish slimy deck just doesn't sound safe to me! But no one cut off a finger that day.

It was a great trip!  And those nice Alaska coats we bought on the way up worked great!  But boy did they smell like fish guts today!!  But they washed up great and we sill ware them today!

Sorry for the lack of pictures on this trip, but somebody dropped the camera in a tide pool, and when we found it two hours later,,,,,,,,, it was toast.  You know, there just isn't a Best Buy on every corner in Alaska!