We've spent the last couple of weeks on the Kenai Peninsula and have had a wonderful time. Our first stop was the town of Homer for 5 days. We were in a nice park on the north edge of town. Because we're a bit on the long side we were put into one of their 10 pull through sites with full hookups. Pretty nice except that the pull throughs didn't have cable TV and it was British Open weekend so my golf fix was relegated to what I could read on the internet. Fortunately I did find the final round on ABC on Sunday afternoon so even though I knew who the winner was, we still enjoyed watching. Homer is a really nice little town just about straight south of Anchorage with great views of the Cook inlet. There is a spit that runs out into the bay with lots of RV parks we could have stayed at but because we wanted to stay near out friends Ron and Carolyn we opted for Oceanview Park. It's probably a good thing because every time we went to the spit the wind was howling!
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| Kachemak park |
We did have an all day kayaking trip scheduled for Friday but as we were headed to the water taxi, the owner called and said the trip was cancelled because of the wind. Good thing too!! We did reschedule for Saturday and this time we were treated to a great day of kayaking. We took a water taxi across the main bay to Peterson Bay which is where St. Augustine Kayak Adventures is located. Our guide Kenny was a wonderful young man with a Masters degree in Environmental Science. Very knowledgeable and accommodating. The Cook Inlet has some of the greatest tide fluctuations on earth, 20+ feet per day between low and high tide. We launched in our double kayak off of a floating dock at just after low tide. As we were paddling we were stopped near a small island waiting for the tide to rise a few inches so we could cross between the island and the shore and not have to go around the island. As we were sitting there we saw a little harbor seal pop his head up a pretty good ways away from us. He just bobbed there watching us for a while then went under. A bit later he popped up behind us, but closer to the kayak. This up and down and getting closer just kept going on for a while and as the tide got in enough for us to continue our trip he came up only about 5 feet behind us and followed us across the little gravel bar that was now deep enough to paddle over. I wonder how close he would have gotten if we'd have just sat still for a bit longer? Oh well, it was still cool and Kenny said he'd never seen that behavior before.
On our adventure we saw lots more seals and lots of sea otters. The otters are really fun to watch. They just float along on the surface grooming, eating or sleeping. Some of the older ones we saw were used to the kayaks and we could get closer to them than the younger ones. In addition to the mammals we saw lots of seabirds and even some Bald Eagles. Very Cool!! Our paddle ended with a float through an arch in the rocks, so a good day was had by all. We ate lunch at a small beach as the tide came rushing back in. Our trip back to the spit was not nearly as fast as out trip over because the wind had come up and things got a bit choppier and huge swells. Everyone on the boat survived and no one "chummed" over the side:) After that long day we treated ourselves to dinner out at the Cosmic Cafe, whose marquee offers "Breakfast, Lunch, and Mexican". We had HUGE Mexican burritos! Good Times
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| Tide out |
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| Tide in |
We've spent the last couple of weeks on the Kenai Peninsula and have had a wonderful time. Our first stop was the town of Homer for 5 days. We were in a nice park on the north edge of town. Because we're a bit on the long side we were put into one of their 10 pull through sites with full hookups. Pretty nice except that the pull throughs didn't have cable TV and it was British Open weekend so my golf fix was relegated to what I could read on the internet. Fortunately I did find the final round on ABC on Sunday afternoon so even though I knew who the winner was, we still enjoyed watching. Homer is a really nice little town just about straight south of Anchorage with great views of the Cook inlet. There is a spit that runs out into the bay with lots of RV parks we could have stayed at but because we wanted to stay near out friends Ron and Carolyn we opted for Oceanview Park. It's probably a good thing because every time we went to the spit the wind was howling!
On our adventure we saw lots more seals and lots of sea otters. The otters are really fun to watch. They just float along on the surface grooming, eating or sleeping. Some of the older ones we saw were used to the kayaks and we could get closer to them than the younger ones. In addition to the mammals we saw lots of seabirds and even some Bald Eagles. Very Cool!! Our paddle ended with a float through an arch in the rocks, so a good day was had by all. We ate lunch at a small beach as the tide came rushing back in. Our trip back to the spit was not nearly as fast as out trip over because the wind had come up and things got a bit choppier and huge swells. Everyone on the boat survived and no one "chummed" over the side:) After that long day we treated ourselves to dinner out at the Cosmic Cafe, whose marquee offers "Breakfast, Lunch, and Mexican". We had HUGE Mexican burritos! Good Times
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