This report is from the Kenai Peninsula which is south of Anchorage, Alaska. The principal cities/places we visited were Homer, Kenai, Soldotna and Seward. Most roads here are “dead end.” They stop by the bay or sea and you have to return the same way you came. We explored several to the very end. Homer is on the south-west point of the peninsula. Most acitivity takes place on the “Spit,” a wide gravel road/dike (orginally created by a glacier) that goes several miles into the Kachemak Bay. There is harbor for commercial fishing and fishing charters. Halibut is the fish of choice here; never realized how large these fish can grow (see below). We camped on the Spit, right by Kachemak Bay. There is also Russian influence here as you will see; old Russian communities, descendents from the time that Alaska belonged to Russia.
First some impressions of Homer, a view of the Spit through the haze; and our campsite by the Bay.
Amazing (to us) Bald Eagles were on the pebble beach right in front of our camper.
And even more surprising a sea otter gave a real performance by swimming a few meters away skirting the beach and then, even better, it came briefly on shore. That’s clearly not his preferred territory as it was very slow.
Halibut can be a big as Betsie and even bigger….
View of the Bay by Homer as were driving to the end of the Sterling Highway. During low tide, it’s one large mud flat (like the “wadden” in Holland).
A Russian orthodox cemetary at the end of road
On our way north again, to the town of Kenai, we stopped by the private museum of a well-known local artist: Norman Cowell. See some of his works below. The style of painting struck us as a little “sweet.” The prices he was asking for his works, however, were far from sweet, 36K for a medium-sized painting….
We detoured to Anchor Point for a stroll on the beach and realized that were on the western most highway in North America……
Salmon fishing is at its high point in July; at almost every stream you see fishermen
Our hike along the beach by Ninilchik; lots of driftwood and….another Bald Eagle, posing for us
The old Russian church by Ninilchik
Cook Inlet State Park north of the city of Kenai; the road goes no farther; we camped here one night. Not many people make it this far up the road.
It is very wet in this area which you can see also by the lush vegetation; we took a stroll on the beach. It’s a little like Normandy: at high tide, the beach disappears under water.
We identified these long-legged waders as “Greater Yellowlegs.”
Betsie is smaller than the Cow Parsnip, a kind of wild celery
From the city of Soldotna, still on the west side of the Kenai peninsula, we signed up for a bear watching/salmon fishing tour. They took us to Wolverine Creek, about 25 minutes by float plane.
Once off the plane, our guide took us by run-about to the mouth the creek. The pictures below speak for themselves. Two brown bears gave a real performance and showed us how to fish for salmon.
They only eat the heads and brains which are the highest in protein. The rest of the fish they just let go.
There are so many salmon that you could almost scoop them up with a net. We used fishing rods; basically, you snag them in the mouth as soon as they swim against your line. We were allowed to take home 3 salmons a person. Our total gross weight for 6 fish was 25.5 lbs or about 11kg. These were “red salmon” also called “sockeye salmon.” Other species, like silver salmon and king salmon, run a few weeks earlier or later.
Here is one proud fisherwoman.
Some black bears also showed up. They don’t seem as good at catching salmon as the grizzlies and seem content to eat the left-overs.
Two bears got into a real fight. It was spectacular to watch; I have some of it on film. One of these days, when I have time, I’ll try to put it on YouTube……
The scene by Wolverine Creek (in the rain)
The float plane came to pick us up again at the end of the day.
After Soldotna, we drove to the south-east end of the peninsula, to the town of Seward. It’s home to the beautiful Sea Life Center where I took this photo of a Horned Puffin.
Seward is also the starting point of the famous annual 953 mile-long dogsled race, the Iditarod
It rained terribly while we were there (thank god we are not tent-camping). The road to the State Park was blocked by a tremendoes stream of water coming down the mountain. Shovels at work to no avail…..
Seward is located at the end of Resurrection Bay (which is a fjord, created by glaciers during the Ice Age). We signed up for a boat tour on a large catamaran, the Glacier Express.
A Bald Eagle observed us as we were leaving the harbor
We did see a bunch of sea otters but they were too far for a good photo. Anyway, you have seen one above. To our pleasant surprise a pod of orkas was quite cooperative; see below….
We sailed into Aialik Bay, another fjord ,to watch close up the enormous glacier by the same name. This is a tidal glacier, meaning that it ends up into the sea. With loud bangs, big chunks of ice break off from time to time. When you hear the sound and look, you are usually too late to see the event as it takes several seconds before the sound reaches you.
We also got to see hump-back whales. One even breached (ie, coming all the way out of the water and falling back in with a big bang). It’s very hard to capture that exact moment on photo; I have a few seconds of video but the quality is poor because of all the rain drops on the lens.
We passed a Steller sea lion colony. These sea lions, especially the males, are much larger than regular sea lions. Still, orkas will catch them and eat them.
Well, that’s it for now. We are now gradually going east and south again, direction British Columbia, Canada. So you could say that after about 3 months and after 13,000 miles, we have begun our return to Virginia……
Great wild life shots! I didn't know you brought a 400mm lens...
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