Sitka to Petersburg - Alaska 2014

this is real 'catch & release' fishing!

After our last visit to Salmon Creek in Juneau watching thousands of salmon trying to swim upstream to breed and catching one by hand next to the shore, we headed out to the terminal to catch our ferry to Sitka, Alaska as the trip map below shows.

MV Columbia was departing Juneau at 1:30am next morning (!!!), but fortunately for us, it arrived before midnight enabling us to board early and go straight to our cabin and bed.  When researching the trip and looking at ferry routes, this one stood out and motivated me to be up again at 6:30am next morning.  

Why… we were likely to be going through narrow channels and we did, sailing through one of the narrowest channels of the entire ferry network called Sergius Narrows in Peril Strait.  At around 100 mtrs wide and our ferry at 26 mtrs wide, there was only 74 mtrs to play with, exciting because the tidal currents which surge through this narrow opening makes manoeuvring interesting or so we were told by crew.

view from our balcony

We arrived early into the Sitka ferry terminal located about 8 kms out of town and tried to catch a taxi, but they were all busy due to cruise ships being in port, so we caught ‘The Ride,’ a $2 per trip community bus system which dropped us off almost out the front of our accommodation at the Cascade Inn.  The room was spacious and very comfortable, with a private balcony overlooking expansive views of the ocean, small islands and a dormant volcano in the distance, along with a constant stream of fishing boats passing by.  This place had a small kitchenette, so we dropped off our bags and went back to ‘The Ride’ bus stop for another trip, this time downtown to find essential groceries.

The area around Sitka was originally inhabited by the Tingit people for around 10,000 years before, and like many parts of Alaska the Russians arrived and settled in 1799.  There was a lot of tension between the two groups leading to a massacre of Russians by the Tingit in the early 1800’s.  By around 1808 however, the Russians were back in control after more fighting and continued their rule, until Alaska was sold to the USA and that transaction actually took place in Sitka. 

Sitka was then the capital of Alaska, until 1906 when it moved to Juneau and is one of the few larger Alaskan towns directly facing the open ocean and has a population of about 9,000.  It is also one of the nicest looking towns so far, with many very expensive looking houses in and around it, many with great views out to the ocean and enjoying westerly sunsets, if the sun is actually shining.

We got lucky, as after nearly 50 minutes still waiting for the next bus that Alaskan friendliness kicked in.  A small car with a largish indigenous bloke driving it, pulled over and asked us if we were okay and did we need a lift anywhere.  “Sure” we said, so Rob got in the back next to the child seat and I got in front.  Our good samaritan explained he had seen us earlier on his trip out of town to go looking for deer or brown bear, there was that bear word again, and saw us still waiting on his way back.  He was a very chatty person and decided to give us a mini tour around town before dropping us off in the centre.  “What’s your name?” I asked, “Billy Bob” came the reply, “welcome to Sitka and have a great time” soon followed as we shook hands and after thanking him, off he went.

During our time in this part of Alaska we have noticed that the sun doesn’t actually come out too often during what they all call ‘summer’, so when the sun does shine you must make the most of it and on our first day in Sitka, the sun was shining.  After a quick lunch we went searching for the Alaska Raptor Centre, a place which nurses injured raptors back to good health and releases as many as possible back into the wild.  They also have some resident raptors which can’t be released due to permanent injuries and it was amazing to see so many and photograph them at close quarters.

bald eagle up close - Alaska Raptor Centre

The weather forecast for the following day had it being sunny in the morning  and cloudy later, so again with the ‘use the sun’ principle in operation and having picked up a rental car, we headed out of town to find ‘Fortress Of The Bear’, this time a place which looks after orphaned bears and releases them if possible.  There were 3 very cute and young black bears along with 5 full grown brown bears, one weighing in at 500 kgs.  To watch the behaviour between each other whilst being very very close to such large animals especially when being fed, was quite something.  It was also a good opportunity to keep practicing our bear photography.

Fortress Of The Bears

Well the cloudy skies did return during the afternoon along with some light rain which continued into the following morning.  We had booked a wildlife tour with Captain Black Bart on his smallish boat.  We have enjoyed our trips out on smaller boats and with us were Rick & Robyn from Phoenix.  Captain Black Bart’s real name is Mitch and he was a loud talking entrepreneur who revelled in telling anyone who would listen, what his next set of plans were. 

yet another tail...

When booking this tour, we told Captain Black we were keen to go searching for whales, sea otters, orcas and visit St Lazaria Island, a bird sanctuary about 30 kms from Sitka.  There are no landings permitted on this island because it is used by numerous species of birds including puffins for nesting.  It was the puffins we were hoping to get a little closer to.

we got closer still... see link

The sea was amazingly calm and the light was pretty good for photography as Captain Black charged out into the bay looking for wildlife.  Captain Fred (Valdez) and Captain Black would make a great team, boy they sure both can talk.

Wasn’t long before we came upon a humpback who was reasonably relaxed with our presence, went looking unsuccessfully for brown bears along the coastline, found some large ‘rafts’ (groups) of sea otters bobbing around amongst kelp and did mange to get closer to some puffins.  

St Lazaria Island is very different indeed and obviously volcanic in origin.  Captain Black also shared some of his home smoked king salmon with us which was very tasty as the weather around us began deteriorating very quickly, so we turned back towards Sitka for a fairly bumpy trip.

Around 4 am next morning, Sitka shared another regular Alaskan experience.  The earth moved for us, the bed shook and the glass door opening onto the balcony rattled.  The sea also made noises Rob hadn’t heard before, all caused by a 4.7 size earthquake centred about 150 kms away from us.  Unfortunately I missed all the excitement, just slept through it and heard about it from Rob, then the owner of the Inn next morning, who also told us there had been a further 10 smaller aftershocks since the first shake.  

After our vibrant start to the day and the return of very steady rain, we drove to the end of both roads out of town, 22 kms in one direction and 13 kms the other, Sitka yet again is another Alaskan town which can only be reached by boat or plane.

We flew out of Sitka early the following morning as the next trip map shows, travelling via Juneau on a 20 min. flight, changing planes and then another 40 mins to reach Ketchikan where we were greeted by steady rain and dark cloudy skies.

Please note - the trip maps also include the touring (foot, car or boat) occurring in each town.

After collecting baggage we went outside looking for transport, a taxi in this case.  We then learnt how the Ketchikan Airport is different to any others we have been to, its on an island and Ketchikan is on another island.  Rather than catch a taxi, we first had to catch a small commuter ferry over to the other island and then catch a taxi into town.

Our accommodation,  a large one bedroom apartment located on top of a small business overlooking a small boat harbour and then the docks where the cruise ships berth, was a very nice surprise and really comfortable and whilst settling in enjoyed the large ‘Disney Wonder’ cruise ship berthing directly in front of us.

Disney cruise ship berthing out front

So how did Ketchikan start life, well it wasn’t because of the Russians and fur.  Ketchikan started life around 1883 when some bloke called Snow decided to build a salmon saltery which grew and then later others came to the region to start mining and also cutting timber.  With all the men around the place, Ketchikan developed a now famous and very active red light district on Creek and Stedman Street.  

Creek St is about 100 mtrs from where we’re staying on Stedman St, so we were right in the heart of all the former action and now historic area.  There is a bridge close by on Stedman St crossing Ketchikan Creek and the coho salmon run was definitely on whilst we were here as we watched people catching fish off the bridge every day.

Ketchikan is essentially located on a narrow strip of land looking over the passage between two islands with steep mountains directly behind it.  There are many buildings here either built up the sides of the mountains and there are numerous long and steep staircases with street names for the residents.  There are even roadways built on pylons on the side of the mountains but much of Ketchikan, including all of the downtown area sits on pylons over the ocean, such is the shortage of land for the city.  It all adds a unique character to Ketchikan.

liquid sunshine guage

The first few days here were a little limiting because it rained and rained and rained and rained.  Did I say it rained!!  Ketchikan is famous for its rain, in fact outside the visitors centre there is a ‘Liquid Sunshine’ gauge. In Alaska because of the wet weather and snow, you see LOTS of people wearing light brown gumboots everywhere, onto planes, around town, in restaurants and the locals call them ‘Alaskan sandles’.  There were a lot of them to be seen in Ketchikan where the annual rainfall average is around 4 mtrs and the locals we talked to simply said the rain we experienced was pretty normal, we just hope it doesn’t impact a tour we have booked to Anan Creek.

'Alaskan sandles' also in Petersburg

It was only drizzling rain with thick low cloud when we woke for our final day in Ketchikan and eventually made our way to the pick up point for our seaplane trip to Anan Creek, regarded as one of the better bear viewing locations in Alaska.  Michelle, our pilot and owner of the tour company advised us however that they couldn’t fly into Anan because of the low cloud cover and had contemplated cancelling altogether, but believed they could get us into another place called Taylors Cove and a viewing site on Margret Creek.  The other good news was that it would be cheaper due to the much shorter flying distance.

There were 5 of us in a tour group and we were all keen to give it a go, so off we went with a few bumps and one shriek from Rob along the way.  The coastal scenery around many of these towns is truly beautiful.  We were all briefed by our pistol and bear spray carrying guide on arrival, and about what to do if we came across a bear on the trail, and that we would only be seeing black bears, and away we went.  It was raining, not heavily but annoyingly if you were keen to take photos.

There is a viewing platform run by the Foresty Dept. and below us was a raging river due to all the recent rain and there was a big black bear standing on rocks near the water waiting to grab a large salmon, which it eventually managed, but soon took its catch under trees out of sight.  The lighting for taking photos was poor because of the thick clouds, a bear which is black and the rain.

Then we waited and watched and a bald eagle high up on a tree watched with us and we waited and waited and waited.  The plan had us staying here for about 3 hours so we hoped some more bears would turn up.  Waiting, waiting, waiting… no more bears, so we took photos of the solitary eagle.  After nearly 2 hours, things started to happen. First with one bear who arrived and very quickly caught a fish and proceeded to eat on the side of the bank.  Then the skies opened up and it teemed with rain!

After a while the rain eased and another bear came to the creek on our side directly below us and caught itself a salmon next to the fish ladder, started to devour it but again disappeared under a bush, maybe the bears don’t like the rain either.

The bear on the other side of the creek had almost finished its fish when another bear headed down the bank towards it and the first bear wasn’t very happy about it because it couldn’t make an easy escape.  With the rain still falling pretty heavily, the two bears sized each other up, bared their teeth at each other and even had a few quick swipes across the face with those large clawed paws.  Was fascinating to watch as they cautiously closed the distance between each other and eventually, the first bear was able to get away.

The new bear got on with the business of fishing and catching a fish then a few other bears came down to feed, one of them launching its head into the creek and causing a swarm of fish to madly swim away from the bank into deeper water but eventually it also caught a fish and ripped it to pieces and ate its fill.

Finally it was time to leave and we headed back down the track.  Rob was up near the front of the group and had a ‘pleasant’ surprise along with a few others when they came upon a bear sitting on a log right next to them.  Having realised there were people next to it,  the bear very very rapidly sprinted off into the forest and all I saw was the black backside as it disappeared.  Rob the bear whisperer, may have lost her touch, fortunately perhaps!

There had been other groups of people from other planes on the platform for shorter periods than us and when we reached the small jetty, two planes and the people were still there waiting to take off.  All the rain we experienced whilst watching the bears was from a change of weather, higher winds and even lower cloud.  Michelle had not been able to return to pick us up either, we instead would be returning to a point for collection by van in a jet boat, which we saw coming our way on the horizon.

We did have an interesting and very choppy ride back with plenty of spray hitting us from the small and very messy white caps all around us.  The trip back had many upsides though.  First, if we had managed to fly back, nobody would have enjoyed either the shrieks or words that would have come out of Rob’s mouth as the plane bounced around.  We also went past a nuclear submarine test facility moored in 400 mtrs of water.  Nobody knows when and if submarines are there because all the sound leakage testing is done below the surface.  On our trip back, we also travelled close to the shores of a few islands and seeing the coastal rainforest up close was a delight.

Our bear viewing tour, despite a very slow start and a lot of rain, had turned into quite a memorable experience indeed.

It was time to leave as yet another trip map shows and this one has us back on the ferry system, this time aboard the MV Matanuska for an overnight trip from Ketchikan to Petersburg, Alaska.  The ferry trip was very smooth because the route goes amongst islands and along relatively narrow channels and meant backtracking north a little.

Petersburg is located on Mitkof Island overlooking the Wrangell Narrows and began in the nineteenth century when a Peter Buschmann from Norway settled there, built a cannery, sawmill and docks and the settlement was named Petersburg after him.  There are only about 2,500 people living on the island and we came here because we thought it might be a little different because of it's mainly Norwegian versus Russian heritage.

It's a very neat town, different in that it wasn’t spread all over the place like many in Alaska are, requiring people to own cars, even if there is only an entire 50 kms of road in a town.  The other noticeable difference with the ‘neat’ description, there wasn’t a lot of junk in the yards of most of the houses, again something we have seen throughout Alaska especially.

our B&B

Our accommodation was in the Waterfront B&B, a very short walk from the ferry terminal, where we were joined by two American couples who had arrived on the same ferry as us.  Our room was right on the waterfront overlooking views of the terminal and mountains on the other side of the channel and it was very comfortable indeed with plenty of room.  Leroy, the owner of the B&B with Sammy, enjoys feeding the bald eagles which nest nearby, by leaving fish for them to swoop down and snatch when there aren’t too many people around.

bald eagle swoops above us at B&B

Our first day was spent walking and exploring the town after visiting the visitors centre.  We were immediately struck by the friendliness of the locals, being greeted constantly by “hello”, including from people walking on the opposite side of the road.  Others we either met on our side of the road or in a shop would quickly ask, “where are you from?”, then follow with multiple other questions, ask how we were enjoying Alaska then typically finish with, “welcome to Petersburg”.  Nice!

Whilst walking along the narrows heading out of town and admiring many of the timber homes either built over the water or with magnificent water views, spotted a familiar shape in the distance and they were heading our way… orca.  There were two of them quietly cruising down the narrows causing many of the locals to stop and also watch or complain bitterly about not having a camera with them.  Even though quite a distance from us, they are an animal with an amazing presence.

transient orca in the narrows

We had heard that the weather was meant to clear up for a bit so our next day was spent on yet another smallish boat, no not looking at glaciers, we were out looking for whales.  Petersburg is very near Frederick Sound, renowned for the large numbers of humpbacks that migrate into it from Hawaiian waters each year.

The boat is a purpose built jet boat with large viewing windows and seats 14 passengers but there were only 6 others out on the water with us.  It had stopped raining but at the start of our trip, there was a lot of fog hanging about.  One of the other passengers turned out to be a UK photographer who runs photography learning tours for small groups.  He had 6 clients heading out tomorrow with him, but this was his personal fun day.  He was very willing to share how he goes about taking wildlife photos, so I enjoyed picking his brains.

There are a lot of whales in this area at this time of year and as the fog lifted to a perfectly clear sunny sky and at times an almost perfectly flat ocean, we found the whales, at times though it seemed like they found us.  At one location we sat for over an hour just drifting, surrounded by 10-15 feeding whales at a time with a constant stream of them passing through.  One decided to check us out, re-surfacing without us knowing it was there, less than 3 metres directly next to us and scared the crap out of most of us.  Later in the day, after spending time watching a colony of sea lions, we found a pair of humpbacks briefly enjoying themselves breaching before continuing on with their feeding.

We always know when we have had a really good day by the number of photos we have taken and Rob cracked an all time record for her with over 800 photos to wade through at the end of the day after dinner.   I only had 400 odd to go through and cull!

Our last few days in Petersburg involved hiring a car for one day and driving to the end of both roads out of town, including an early evening visit to some rapids a local told us about.  The salmon run is on here as well, and bears are meant to come down to the rapids to feed.  We were also told that Petersburg has both black and brown bears, so with bear spray handy, we headed to the rapids.  It was a lovely setting with plenty of fish again trying to get upstream and on the opposite bank a good distance away was a black bear and cub.  They weren’t too fussed by our presence but another noise spooked her and she sprinted off back into the forest, cub close behind her.

At long last we also experienced something missing for many months… a sunset!  Behind Petersburg in the distance on the other side of Frederick Sound is a range of snow capped jagged mountains including one called Devils Thumb.  With the sun setting and near cloudless skies, it was an excellent opportunity to get photos of the fishing and seaplane harbour near town.  It was so nice to at long last see some ‘golden hour’ colours on scenery again.

Devils Thumb in background

But our time in Petersburg was at an end as we boarded the ferry MV Taku to now leave Alaska altogether and continue our southwards journey back into British Columbia, Canada.  As we pulled away from the dock, Leroy and two fellow American travellers we had hit it off with, waved us goodbye, which was a very nice way to depart.  

MV Taku in front of B&B

This trip shows using different colours our routes to each of the 3 towns.

Juneau to Sitka = blue
Sitka to Ketchikan = red
Ketchikan to Petersburg = green

Alaska is an amazing part of the USA, with fantastic scenery, laid back and very friendly people, very changeable weather and the constant feel of the great outdoors.  It is truly well worth a visit.

Just click the link(s) below to view any of the additional pictures:

CLICK HERE for more photos - Sitka <> Ketchikan <> Petersburg 2014


CLICK HERE for more photos - Humpback breaching, Petersburg 2014

Kodiak Island and Homer - Alaska 2014

So there we were, standing on the Alaska Marine Highway dock in Kodiak on Kodiak Island at 1:45am, the temperature for us is brisk to say the least, and Beth, our host at Mrs Potts B&B, arrives as promised.

We were soon asleep in a very comfortable bed and emerged for breakfast around 8:30am next morning.  Beth has a lively and very mischievous sense of humour as we discovered whilst enjoying the first of multiple delightful breakfasts with her and with any other guests also staying there.

The first of two trip maps for this post, shows where we went on the island during nearly a week that we were on Kodiak Island.  You will get to the 2nd map as you read on.

So just to get started, let’s begin with the island.  It’s the second largest island in the USA and it is known as the emerald isle because it is green, very green, well in summer at least because it rains a fair bit.  The island is 160 kms long and ranges in width between 16 kms and 96 km wide.

bald eagle on Russian Orthodox cross

The island was originally inhabited by the Alutiiq people for thousands of years and in 1784, the Russians established a settlement on the island to support their fur harvesting and trading ambitions.  

Due to savage reductions in wildlife numbers over the years, then in 1941, well after Alaska was bought by the USA, 2/3rds of the island was declared a wildlife refuge to protect land and sea species from being wiped out.

Whilst there are a number of roads on the island, they are very limited to where they go due to the refuge and the only practical way to get into preserved wilderness areas is to go by either boat or seaplane.  

On the island, apart from what we were here to see, there are introduced black tailed deer, mountain goats and red foxes, along with native bald eagles, puffins, otters and guillemots amongst the other animals that can be searched for.

Most tourists who come to Kodiak are here for two prime reasons, fishing or looking at one of the largest carnivores in the world, the Kodiak brown bear, a genetically distinct sub species of mainland grizzlies, except they are on average, 2 times larger.  There is a LOT of fishing done on and around Kodiak, especially for salmon of every variety during summer and king crab, with Kodiak being the ‘home’ of these crabs.

We were here specifically to see Kodiak bears and allowed extra days to try and ensure success, in case the weather caused delays, because as experienced in Dutch, the weather here is very changeable.  On Kodiak Island there are about 3,000 bears living mainly within the refuge, but they are known to occasionally wander near town. 

hmmm!

So when we use the terms, ‘largest carnivore’, let me try to describe this for you.  A large boar (male) kodiak bear can weigh up to 635 kgs and if they decide to stand up on their hind legs to check you out, they will reach up about 3 mtrs and remember, if they choose to, they can sprint at the same speed as a horse over shortish distances.

We had pre-booked our bear viewing flight with Andrews Airways many months earlier based on the advice from Beth and she was right, these tours are heavily booked for the summer months.  After being collected and arriving at the Andrews Airways base, we were kitted up with thigh high waders and made our way to a beaver seaplane for the 45 min flight across the island.

the trusty Beavers

We were travelling with 2 other tourists from the USA who had spent extensive time wandering around Australia, Mark the pilot and his niece, which was a real benefit because he was keen to show her as much of the scenery as he could whilst she was with him.  Of additional comfort was Mark having worked for many years and all year round on the island with Andrews, so we knew we would be in good hands as we flew over and amongst the mountains to one end of Fraser Lake.

flying across Kodiak Island

Our landing was very smooth and soon we were all walking along a dirt path for about 1 km, looking forward to seeing one of these large bears.  It didn’t take long and Rob spotted it first, a large brown shape nonchalantly walking away from us back into the bushes only 200 mtrs away.

At one end of Fraser Lake is a fish ladder which looks more like a small weir wall with the ‘ladder’ on the  side closest to where we would be sitting.  It has been built to make it a little easier for the salmon to reach further up stream past the high waterfalls behind the weir wall.  

The salmon congregate in a small lake in front of the wall before making their way against the fast flowing current, up the ‘ladder’.  The bears aren’t stupid, they come here to feast and fatten up on salmon before winter returns.

mum and her 3 cubs

Even before we had sat down our hopes of seeing Kodiak bears close up had been achieved because in the water in front of the weir wall was a large mother hunting for salmon whilst her three, 2nd year old cubs waited semi patiently on the wall itself.  

It wasn’t long after some sprints into the lake before she had a fish that her cubs were soon squabbling about to get their claws on it also.

It was just fantastic as we sat and settled in and the cameras started to click profusely.  Suddenly to our very near left, another bear maybe about 4-5 yrs old, came wandering into sight and straight into the water.  

Immediately the mother bear was on edge and watching the new bear very closely and finally when it went too close to her and her cubs, she reacted by moving quickly towards it, forcing it out of the water and then chasing it up the side of a small hill.

With the water in front of us clear of bears, another much larger and most likely male bear also lumbered out of the scrub, straight into the water and up to the weir wall looking for fish.  Took him a little while but he soon had one before ripping it to pieces, the bright red flesh rapidly disappearing into its large mouth.  The mother bear rounded up her cubs and led them back up a hill where they stayed for a while.

more bear photos in separate link at end of this post

Then further down the river two more quite large bears appeared, also walked straight into the water, but chose to keep their distance from the large male, but he was distracted looking for another fish.  So to our shared delight, these two bears made their way across to our side of the water, then walked back onto land and proceeded to play fight right in front of us and close, about 8-10 mtrs away.  Every now and then they would look at all of us but soon returned to the jousting.  All that could be heard from us was click, click and more clicking.

These two bears wisely decided to climb up along the water ladder searching for fish, because the large male had decided it was time to get out of the water, which he also chose to do right in front of us, also about 8 mtrs away and occasionally he would look us over before eating more grass… thankfully.

In all whilst we were there, we saw 11 bears coming and going or returning, chasing each other, avoiding each other, looking for fish and eating fish.  At no stage did we feel threatened, in part because of Mark’s experience and equally by the local resident Ranger who joined us to answer any questions whilst keeping a close eye on the bears at all times.  If Mark and the Ranger were relaxed even when the bears were as close as they were, then we figured we could remain relaxed.  Comforting theory we thought.

We watched the bears for a few hours and all too soon it was time to head back to the plane and again enjoy the wonderfully scenic flight back across and at times between snow capped mountains or passing over deep green valleys or waterways, but this time whilst on an adrenaline high after having had a very exciting time with the bears.

This link will take you to a live webcams of bears hopefully feeding on salmon - not on Kodiak Island - back on the mainland in Katmai National Park at a location called Brooks Falls:

http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls

There was still a lot more to explore around Kodiak, so after picking up our ‘rent a wreck’, over successive days we drove to the end of each of the main roads on the island, including doing some pseudo 4WD driving across creek beds. 

On the first day with a car, the 4th of July celebrations were underway, which included a parade through town which we watched, lots of people having BBQ’s around their homes, or on some of the main camping spots near rivers and beaches.  

At night it was time to let off fireworks, not at a central location but generally wherever anyone wanted to within local rules.  With the sun setting around 11:30pm, the fireworks were still going off very late into the night or early morning.

Kodiak the town from Pillar Mountain

During our days with the car, a few times we went out of town to where a number of rivers run into the ocean to watch people fishing for salmon whilst standing on bridges and could see the salmon only a few metres away from them, quite something.

On one of our explorations across the island, we did find something which surprised us… a rocket launch pad, two of them actually, along with an assembly facility and separate mission control centre, owned and by Alaska Aerospace Corp.  

It wasn’t that far off the road, big fences around it naturally, but little other observable security.  After some google searching, we learnt that 15 launches of something have occurred here since 2001 with a 100% success rate.

Before leaving Kodiak Island, we had to have a king crab meal.  Kodiak Island is the home of these crabs so naturally it was the right place to try them and it was very delicious, might have to try these again before we leave Alaska.

Rob and king crab

Finally it was time to say our farewells after a very enjoyable time on Kodiak Island and staying with Beth at her B&B.  We boarded the ‘Trusty Tusty’ (MV Tustumena) ferry which had previously brought us to Kodiak from Dutch for the overnight trip north to Homer and back onto the Alaskan mainland.

During wanderings so far in both Alaska and the Yukon, when describing to other travellers the names of towns we were planning to visit, whenever we mentioned Homer, there was usually a response like, “that’s a great place” or similar, so now here we were at 7am at the very end of Homer’s 8 km spit.

This second trip map shows our route from Kodiak Island to Homer, around the Homer area and then back through a new part of the Kenai to Anchorage again… all is explained if you read on.

Homer has one of the longest spits of land in the world and thankfully there was a place open at 7am within a short walk from where we landed to get some breakfast and begin to absorb what this place is about.  Fishing, lots and lots of fishing!  There were fishing charter boats heading out to sea, there are fish restaurants and there are lots and lots of RVs and people camping along almost the entire length of the spit to go fishing.

Homer Spit

Homer is proudly known as the halibut fishing capital of the world.

We eventually arrived at our B&B around midday, settled in and then went walking around other parts of Homer.  It has a nice casual feel to it and has a permanent population of around 5,000 but right now during the short Alaskan summer, probably 40-50,000 with more RVs pulling into town constantly.  There are lots of camping areas and they are basic, a bit of fine grey gravel dirt and power… probably.  The campers don’t care, they’re here for the fish.

The following day, we took a wildlife ferry cruise to a very small town of around 250 called Seldovia, located along Kachemak Bay which  is part of Cook Inlet.  Before arriving at Seldovia, we travelled via Gull Island, named very appropriately, but along with the masses of gulls there were cormorants, guillimots and one of our favourites, puffins.  Again there were quite a few sea otters and this time we managed to get a better view of a baby perched on its mother’s stomach.

Gull Island

Seldovia is really quaint with some of the pre 1964 earthquake buildings still standing along with the timber boardwalks originally used by the Russians and indigenous folk to move around on.  

some old Seldovia houses on boardwalk

Prior to the earthquake, this town was one of many in the area subject to 8-9 mtr tidal movements every 6 hours, but in 1964, the land in the area dropped by 2 mtrs, most of the boardwalks and buildings in many towns were washed away.  

We found a quirky little place nestled down near the water in a small inlet to have lunch and watch numerous salmon jumping out of the water in front of us and a lone sea otter cruised slowly past.

For our remaining day in Homer, we used a rental car to go exploring around town and along quite a beautiful coastline before heading back out to the spit for dinner at one of the many fish restaurants.  Not far from Homer is a small place called Anchor Point where we were told there were bald eagles and sure enough, managed to get a few different shots, albeit from a distance.  Anchor Point however gained its name because Captain Cook lost an anchor here.  That Captain Cook pops up in all sorts of places.

aerial duelling

Halibut is a weird looking fish but it tastes great and over here is more expensive than the very plentiful salmon.  Two of the other guests staying in the B&B were from Alabama and were also in Homer to go fishing for halibut which they planned to have it packed and frozen, then shipped back to their home a few weeks later.

We departed Homer and drove back to Anchorage along the remaining part of The Kenai we had not yet seen, pulling into little towns along the way before finally arriving back at the Arctic Fox for our third and final stay with them.  The next phase of our wanderings now has us heading southwards.

Yep… there are additional photos including an extra one just for those bears, so click on a link if you’re so inclined:

CLICK HERE for more photos - Kodiak & Homer 2014

CLICK HERE for more photos - Kodiak Bears 2014

Kenai - Alaska 2014

Our first night in Anchorage was in a RV park to complete the final internal cleaning of Homer before she was returned, and then we had one night in a very comfortable B&B Inn called the Arctic Fox, which we’re now enjoying a second night in after completing a circuit through ‘The Kenai’, known also Alaska’s playground, as can be seen in the map below.

Apart from a walk through the centre of the city, we didn’t spend much time in Anchorage during our first stay, preferring to do more of the touristy things when we returned, so we picked up the rental car and headed out again.

You may notice that many of the photos may appear a little darker or gloomier.  This is because it is summer in Alaska and it rains more and we experienced more cloudy skies and wetter weather than the rest of the trip thus far.  Oh well!

It was an all day drive via Palmer as we made our way towards Valdez, a town made famous unfortunately by a large oil spill back in 1989.  The drive itself was very scenic and it seemed like much of our time was spent making our way across a long high plateau.  

Nearing Valdez we spotted numerous RVs and other cars parked near a bridge, something must be going on, so we stopped to see.

Fishing!  Standing along the river bank were many people constantly throwing either a fly or lure into the fast flowing water trying to catch salmon and whilst watching, one person did with great excitement.

The drive into Valdez was one where every corner we turned… BANG… standing there yet again were more stunning and jaggered snow capped mountains laid out into the distance, but there was more.  

Our road was accompanied by a beautiful river also winding its way down the same valley the road used.  This went on and on and on as we slowly descended and a few times when the road narrowed through a gorge, we had waterfalls right next to the road.

River next to road into Valdez

waterfall next to road

When the distance signs indicated we were quite near Valdez, yet another surprise, Thompson Pass, which according to the tourism blurb is a 855 m high gap in the Chugach Mountains northeast of Valdez. 

It is also regarded as the snowiest place in Alaska, recording about 14m of snow per year on average and the drive down through the pass was truly spectacular.

Valdez itself is small and a little eccentric in many ways, a place where people get on with mainly fishing and whilst people are very welcoming of tourists, there is no real sense at all that they feel tourism is important to their economy.  

Valdez is also where the Alaska Oil Pipeline ends and the oil is shipped down south, which means there is a lot of oil based revenue produced that the town benefits from.

So it really didn’t take much time at all to see what there was to see on our first full day, which was also very wet, but there was a real treat to come.  During our pre-trip internet research, we had spotted a small daily boat tour of 5+ hours which received good reviews and the ‘5+’ description was important as we soon found out.  

When I say a small daily boat tour, when we boarded Lu Lu Belle at 10:45am on our second day, there were only 28 others with us, so nice and intimate.

Lu Lu Belle is the boat on left

Our Captain, Fred Rodoff took us through a general and safety briefing which was one of the funniest any of us had heard I’m sure, and then we headed out into Prince William Sound past the huge Valdez oil storage tanks and loading port.  Now Captain Fred talks with a very distinctive drawl where words seem to take forever to end and has a wickedly dry and politically incorrect sense of humour to go with it.

Well the tour was just great with numerous wildlife encounters like the sea otters bobbing around in the ocean, bald eagles, stellar sea lions, puffins, humpback whales and one so close we could smell how bad each blow was.  

Bald Eagle

Steller Sea Lions

Every now and again we were joined by Dall porpoises who charged around in the bow wake and there were numerous seals to be seen.

Dall Porpoises the pocket rockets

But then there was the Columbia Glacier!  One of Captain Fred’s claims is that he would get us closer to the glacier than anyone else, which is what he did by picking his way through the sea ice, sometimes with a bit of a crunch or bang, until we were sitting, engines off, around 800 m from the towering face.  Here we sat for an hour listening to all the creaking and cracking sounds until every now and again it would suddenly calve.

Columbia Glacier

We arrived back into port nearing 8:30pm, a good 9.5 hrs after we had departed and during this whole time, Captain Fred had kept everyone informed and amused with his non stop commentary.  He made every effort constantly to find wildlife and teach us about the Valdez area and its history including the impact of the 9.2 earthquake that destroyed the original Valdez in 1964.

We departed Valdez using the Alaska Marine Highway ferry for a 2.5 hr trip to Wittier, an even smaller town, sitting between the ocean and mountains, with only one road out of it.  The road out is unique because it requires driving through a 4 km tunnel, originally built for just the railway and now shared with the trains.  To make it a little more interesting, it's only one way at a time, so that means they have a timetable for using the tunnel.

Glacier after glacier after glacier is what we saw as we drove to our next accommodation in a little, and I do mean little, town called Hope.  Hope is located literally at the end of a road next to the the Turnagain Arm, a stretch of water named after Captain Cook who got lost in it in 1778 and had to ‘turnagain’.

Seaview Cafe - Hope, Alaska

Our accommodation in Hope was comfortable, but best described as rustic, as was most of Hope itself, with most of the original buildings still being used including the Seaside Cafe we had dinner in which still sports its original sign.  

Hope started life also due to gold in 1896, found a few years before the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon, and the town got its name when the prospectors in the area thought it was time to build a town and name it after the next person to arrive by boat.  Well a 17 year old by the name of Percy Hope was the next person to step off the boat so Hope was founded.

other people rafting like we did

We had booked a 3 hr rafting drift down the Kenai River, so found the operator in Cooper Landing, got kitted out with rubber boots, pants and coat, joined the other 4 tourists and off we bobbed peacefully down this very beautiful river.  

With salmon fishing also well underway on this river, as part of our 20 km journey included drifting past a 3 km line of people standing on both sides of the river trying to get salmon in what the locals call ‘combat fishing’.  

'combat' salmon fishing on Kenai River, Alaska

Whilst that was interesting enough, the thunderstorm looming up behind us and the occasional bolt of lightning nearby had everyone very focussed, even some bald eagles left the area.  

Down came the rain as we drifted further down the river and our guide even started rowing to get us all off the river.

From Hope we made our way to Seward, located on the coast and one of the towns the cruise ships visit.  Seward is a very pleasant town, well geared up for tourism and where most people take one of the numerous Kenai Fjord boat tours.   

Before we took ours, we also drove to and then took a short hike up to the side of Exit Glacier located only a few kms out of Seward.  We were back trudging around in bear country but at least we had plenty of other people around us.

Northwestern Glacier - Kenai Fjords, Alaska

Our boat cruise was 9 hrs long and again we saw Dall porpoises, humpbacks including one who decided to breech a few times close by which was a first for us, lots of birds including some rare ones which got 4 twitchers on board very excited, seal, otters and yet another glacier, the Northwestern Glacier.  

You would think by now we would be glaciered out but they are all different and this one was actually the prettiest glacier we have been to, almost intimate for something so big.  

Tufted Puffins

As we departed the glacier, at a specific spot, a visiting glacioligist had asked the skipper to perform a 360 degree manoeuvre so that all 5-6 glaciers and accompanying mountains in the area could be viewed.  

It was quite something as we did this twice because the skipper likes it so much and took video of one of the 360’s

With our Kenai circuit almost complete, we drove back into Anchorage to enjoy some time looking around and exploring this city and to achieve this, we hired some pushbikes and rode around for 3 hours.  

Bloody sore legs at the end of it though.  Tomorrow we catch a plane to our next destination and change of pace but that will have to wait until the next post.

There are more photos so just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos - The Kenai