Homer to Seward

Once we got back to Homer, we had to pick up our left luggage and make the 3 1/2 hour, 170 mile drive from Homer to Seward.

Half the way we were retracing our drive down from Anchorage, the rest of the way was the Seward Highway south. We took our sweet time, mainly because we wanted to drive through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. That was about a 30 mile diversion on dirt roads, but it was worth it.

Since it was mostly raining when we drove down, we did not get this great view of Mount Iliana:

an active volcano on the other side of the Cook Inlet.

But we rode alongside the Inlet for a while, and stopped several times to enjoy the view:

and the little Russian Orthodox Churches along the way:

The Refuge itself was dotted with little lakes, and covered with evergreens - mostly spruce:

 Like a postcard:

We stopped several times here as well:

 and as we were coming out of a camping area, we saw a momma black bear and two cubs. The could not have been cuter, and they skittered into the woods.

We stopped in front of Exit Glacier, just outside of Seward for one last snap:

KBWL to Homer

There was an exceptionally low tide at the Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge the morning we left.

High Tide:

Low Tide. Note the dock and the boat. We had to have our luggage packed by 7:30 so they could get them on the boats.

Then we had to walk across the peninsula to get to the bay with easier access to the boats.

After the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, some of the land in this area dropped as much as 6', allowing salt water to kill many of the forests.  These "ghost forests" have been protected since that time. and you can still see many of them in the area around Homer, Seward, and as far north as Anchorage.

We got in the boats and headed to Homer, but not after a little quick tidepooling on the way.

TIdepooling in Kachemak Bay

The tides are so big in Kachmak Bay, you see amazing things when they are out.

And the last day we were there, they had an exceptionally low tide.

High Tide:

Low Tide:

so we took our handy tidepooling guides and headed off:

It was pretty good from the get go.

These True Stars are big, and they have an interesting characteristic. They don't like things growing on them, so they have thousands of small pincers on their top that are continually cleaning themselves.  You can put it against your arm hair, and it will pull it off. Pretty cool, if you think about it.

Plenty of birds, too. these are Lesser Yellow-Legs.

Mussels being eaten by a sea star (so, when did they stop being starfish? I don't know)

a True Star just hanging out.

We spotted this little Blood Star.

Our guide was always getting us to eat seaweed. Some of it was pretty good!

There is not a bad view in Alaska.

Here I am, going through a nascent sea arch.

And coming out the other side.

There were just piles of sea stars. These are True Stars.

 This is a Christmas Anemone. It really looks uncomfortable here. They look great when thee tide comes in, though.

Here are three of them

 What a view.

A nice day.

More kayaking

While I am waiting for my other images to upload (do we still call them photographs?) I think I would like to relate to you a brief sagacity about another kayak trip.

Yes, we did it again.

This time, I was in the front, and Doreen was in the back, her legs being better suited to steering, and my "go along to get along" (that should be my aptonym, much like "Dew Catcher" or "Spider Catcher" is for Doreen) nature is better suited for the front seat, where all I do is paddle and look on in awe at the natural splendor. So we got a better boat:

and off we went:

It was a good, though shorter ride:

but with more open water crossings.

At about that one mile point above, we saw a bunch of harbor seals playing hide and seek with us. Very cute animals, big eyes and friendly.

That part of the map above at the very bottom, the south side? That was really an island.

On the crossing on the way back it was rather windy, and quite choppy. Since Doreen and I had a sense of anestrophic anticipation, we had no idea that we might be in trouble. When we got back to shore, John said that he would have had a lot more fun if we had not been with him. "I kept saying to myself, "Please don't tip over, Please don't tip over"". And he was talking about us.

We had a good time, as you can tell:

Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge

We had low or no bandwidth since we left Homer. We are still bandwidth deprived, but I will try to keep up the stories. These are mostly for us, so that we remember what we did here years hence.

As the previous post mentioned, the KBWL is a great place to stay. On our first full day out there, we decided that we needed to get up close to the ocean, and jumped in a Sea Kayak.

We were assigned a Nekki, a big plastic shell of a boat that nobody else wanted. That is because it is hard to maneuver and slow. We were assigned this boat because I was too tall to sit in the back of the other, nicer boat. (More on that tomorrow).

Here is Doreen, all buttoned in:

Y'all probably know that these boats have rudders that you manipulate with your feet. My legs were too long for the pegs, so we steered the old fashioned way. With our paddles:

 We kayaked out to China Poot.

Here is the first part of the ride. And I gotta tell you, we were flying! That is because the tide - that big Kachemak Bay Tide, was heading our way.

We thought we were kings of the ocean.

And we took a little break.

This is our guide, John, another Kayaker, Steve, and Doreen.

China Poot Bay.

Then we got ready to paddle back to the lodge.

And it started off nice and calm.

We even stopped at another beach. Coalition Beach.

Then we had to paddle back. Against the tide. Against the wind. We were running against the wind. Against the wind.

It was sort of like murder.

But we made it back to the lodge.

In one piece, in Old Snake Eyes. (our affectionate name for the kayak, stolen from John McPhee)