Halibut

We had to give up looking for salmon after a while, so that we would have time to fish for halibut. Mark took us to an area where he said the halibut were less common, but it was his favorite spot to find the big ones. It was a really pretty spot, calm and near shore, where we could see a couple of waterfalls.




It's lovely, but there are no fish here. We fished for a while, and pulled up a half dozen cod, and even a nice rockfish, but no halibut. The rockfish is pretty, and its good eating (it's a snapper), so Al, who caught it, decided to keep it. This is Captain Ron with the rockfish



So we moved to another spot, near a boat that was catching ( and was friends with our captains). In fact, the other guys pulled up a 90 pound halibut! The kid who landed it is smaller than the fish!

We started getting bites right away, and we pulled up and released a number of small fish, hoping for a bigger one. Unfortunately we didn't catch any big ones, so after a while we started keeping the small ones so we would make our limit and have fish to send home. We caught 4 (just for me and Todd, the boat caught about 10 total), the sizes ranged from 15 to 30 lbs. I caught the biggest at 30lbs here :



I'm almost glad I didn't catch a bigger one. This was a lot of work! Halibut can really feel like you are pulling up the entire bottom of the sea, even the little ones. We will both be sore tomorrow!

And here is Todd posing with his salmon:



The captain fillets our fish right in board, and tosses it in a plastic bin. It turns out Todd's salmon is a rare white king, which is supposed to taste even better than the regular pink kind. When we get back to the dock in homer, it is almost 6PM. The folks from the fish processing center meet us at the boat, and take our cleaned fish off to be vacuum packed, frozen, and packed for shipping. They will hold it for us and ship after we get home. We have almost 50lbs of fish!

Location:On Kachemak Bay

Gone fishing!

Tuesday was overcast, but we had hopes it wouldn't be as rainy. Because today we headed out on an all day fishing trip. We chartered a halibut/salmon combo through Bob's Trophy Charters. Our captains were Ron and Mark. There was one other couple on the trip with us, Al and Lori from Alberta.

We headed out at around 7AM and headed for the spot to troll for salmon. The seas were calm as glass, and the clouds hung low over the mountains. It's really gorgeous out here on the water, and the camera can't do it justice.



Our first task was trolling for salmon. Our captains rig the poles with lures or bait, and these flashers which hang in the water looking like fish. Then they go very slowly through the area where we think there are salmon. When one of the poles gets a hit, the captain yells "number 3!!!" and one of us will go start reeling in pole 3, hoping there is a salmon.

Lori takes the first one, and pulls in a nice 15 lb salmon. The second bite, I reel in, but it's just a cod, so we throw it back. 3rd hit, and it's still my turn, but this time it's a halibut, and a small one, so back it goes. Another hit, another cod for me. Then I pull up another halibut. I'm tired of reeling now, so the next hit, I yell for Todd to take it. And he starts reeling it in...



Yeah! He's bagged a 20 pound king salmon!

Al tries the next one, and it's a silver salmon,but it gets away before he can land it. The next one is mine, and I reel hard, but the fish breaks the leader and gets away. Since we are using 60lb test line, I'm certain I lost a 61 lb salmon!!

Location:E Bayview Ave,Homer,United States

Rainy day in Homer

Monday was a grey drizzly day, and we didn'thave anything planned. So we had a lazy morning. I went down to the beach, below our b&b for a walk. At low tide, there are long stretches of shady, rocky beach. The tides here rival Maine for length. A few shots of the beach:












We spent a bit of time wandering around Homer. We went to the Pratt museum which has a general history of the area...displays cover native people's, homesteaders, area wildlife and one exhibit talks about the Exxon Valdez spill.

At the end of the day, we had pizza for dinner at Fat Olive's. Then came back where Todd enjoyed is favorite part of this b&b...the hot tub with a view.

Location:E Bayview Ave,Homer,United States

About the cruise

I realize I have written very little about the ship, and the cruising part of our journey. Since it's a quiet rainy day, here in Homer, and I have some time, I did want to cover that a bit.

Coral Princess is a pretty big ship, though not as big as some of the megacruise liners out there. It holds around 2000 people, and was built specifically to fit in the Panama Canal, which keeps the size down a little bit.

Our cabin was a minisuite with balcony on Caribe deck (deck 10). It's relatively spacious for a stateroom, with a nice sitting area, 2 tvs, and the balcony has room for 4 seats.

Here's the room:


And this is the balcony



It is too cold in Alaska to use the balcony a lot. However on the glacier cruising days, it was a great place to be. The decks could get pretty crowded near the rails.

Contrary to popular opinion, having a port side cabin on a northbound cruise is perfect. The inside passage has scenery on both sides most of the time, and when you enter glacier bay and college fjord, the port side has a better view. I would not hesitate to recommend a port side cabin, no matter which direction you are cruising.

The food on board as generally pretty good. Some things were just okay, some were great, but nothing was really terrible. We ate most of our dinners in the dining room, with traditional late seating (fixed time, same table every night). Our waiter, Sebastian, was pretty entertaining. He did get to know us, and as the cruise went in was quick to bring us extras. I particular, he got to where he knew my nephews would want more of things. On the last night he brought my 19 year old nephew TWO orders of the mussels, and just filled up a big bowl of them for him. It was very funny.

We did eat one night in the alternative restaurant, Sabbatini's. This was a huge meal with lots of different courses. It was good, but really not worth the extra charge, I don't think. It's an additional $20/person and not any better than what you get In the regular dining room.

Our favorite food item on the ship was the Princess pizza, served near the pool. We all had a hard time passing it up whenever we were out on deck. Really, the availability of food ALL the time can really catch up with you.

We often had lunch or breakfast in the Horizon court which is the buffet. Results here were mixed, some of the buffet offerings were pretty awful. But there was plenty of selection, so there was always something edible. However, this dining area is always busy, tables were hard to come by, and it was a zoo. We got a bit tired of dealing with it after a while. I often had breakfast via "Todd's Delivery Service". Really, everybody needs a companion willing to brave the buffet line to bring coffee, fruit and bacon back to the room while i slept late!

This is a picture of the pool area on the Lido deck. Its pretty deserted even in the day time because it's cold and windy.


We went to a couple of the evening shows in the Princess Theater. One of them was a juggler/comedian named Dan Bennett. He was surprisingly hilarious. We really enjoyed his act. The other show was a production deal called "Motor City", which was a salute to Motown. Now I kind of liked it, I liked the music. But the blond girl who sang the lead parts had a nice enough voice, however she didn't have anywhere near enough would for the songs she was singing. And she couldn't dance a lick. The rest of the cast was okay, but the overall effect was a bit schmaltzy and pointless. Perhaps that was the intent? If so, they did a great job!

Several family members enjoyed the casino. Nobody lost too much money. Nobody played slots, they were mostly playing blackjack and having a good time.

All in all, we really enjoyed the cruising experience, and might do it again some time, maybe even on a Princess ship. The parts we didn't enjoy...the occasional crowds and waiting in line for stuff, were fairly minimal. And I do wish they'd give up the policy of formal nights. While I thought it would be fun to get dressed up, I never want to have to convince 9 people to travel with dress clothes ever again!

Looking for wildlife

On Sunday I had booked us a guide for the day, to take us out on the water and looking for wildlife. Eagles, otters, puffins, and whatever else we could find was on the agenda. I was also hoping to shoot some of the beautiful scenery.

We explored Kachemak bay for a bit, with our skipper aboard the Skookum. We pulled into Little Tutka Bay, with hopes of seeing some tide pools, but it was a little too late, and the channels were filling up. It was a charming bay, however.



And we did meet Harry, the sea otter.



We went into Tutka Bay, and caught a couple of cod to use as eagle bait. When we found a couple of likely fellows, we threw the fish out, and wait to see if they would fly in and have lunch. And sure enough, one did

Here he is, taking off with his booty



We also went to Gull Island, in the middle of Kachemak Bay. Guess where it's name comes from?




Amongst the gulls on this large rock, were common murres, and these red faced cormorants



And just what I was looking for...some tufted puffins





Here's more of Gull Island



All in all, it was a great day out on the water!

Location:Seabreeze Ct,Homer,United States

Dinner in Homer

So our first evening in Homer, we went to a restaurant called Cafe Cups. It's a very small dining room, maybe a dozen tables, and they are all full...well, all but one. We're lucky as we have no reservations, but we get the last table. Very lucky, as this dinner would be unexpectedly delicious. I really wasn't expecting much, just hoping for some nice fresh seafood.

We both started with shellfish. I had local clams and mussels in a basil and walnut cream sauce. Thud clams are tiny cherrystones, and they are wonderful. Todd orders the local oysters, which have been roasted with sage, mushroom and feta. Here they are:


I found out since then, that oysters are not native to these waters. But there is a growing aquaculture industry, and these Kachemak Bay Oysters are the result. In fact, this is the farm where Todd's oysters were grown:


For dinner, I had the grilled halibut, and Alaskan red salmon with a blueberry pico de gallo


And this is Todd's rockfish and local scallops with black sesame teriyaki and green tea noodles.



A note about the beverage (this is for Steve M. If he's reading:) )
All the restaurants around here serve the local beer from Homer Brewing Company. The Homer brews are not bottled, only served on draft, they are unfiltered, and they are cask conditioned. They are also really, really good. Particularly the Scottish red ale, and the porter. Yum! We drank so much wine aboard the ship. That this beer has been a welcome change.


PS it's 9:30 PM as I write this, and it looks like mid afternoon out there. I mean, i think the sun goes down sometime, but I don't really know because sunset is way past my bedtime, and it's back up by the time I get up.

Location:Homer Spit Rd,Homer,United States

Arriving in Homer

It's Saturday, and I finally have time to catch up with my posts. We disembarked the Coral Princess in Whittier this morning. It was a fairly easy process, though I wish I had known that independent travellers can leave the ship whenever they want, as long as their transportation is ready. We would have let a bit earlier.

Anyways, we walked from the ship a couple of blocks to the Avis office. It started raining hard while we walked, and we got rather wet. We had no issues picking up our car, except they didn't have any local maps. They gave us the standard car rental maps of Anchorage and Fairbanks...two places we aren't going. I tried to buy a map, but they had nothing. Of course, there are only two highways on the Kenai Pninsula, and only one road out of Whittier, so perhaps a map is a silly idea. I do have the iPad of course, but there doesn't seem to be any 3G out here, only edge network, so it's very slow.

Leaving Whittier we drive through the longest single lane tunnel in the world. It's timed, so we had to wait about a half hour before it opened in the direction we wanted to travel. Then we were annoyed to find they let all the tour buses go through first.

Here's the tunnel entrance



It's about a 4 hour drive to Homer. I thought we might stop for some sightseeing along the way, but we're both a little tired today and prefer to drive straight through. We do stop for lunch at a diner in Cooper Landing.

The drive along the Kenai river is very pretty. I think we will stop at Russian River Falls on the way back in a few days to get some pictures. There were a lot of fishermen out on the river.

We do stop outside of Homer at the scenic overlook, where you can see the entire Homer spit



Finally, we arrive out our destination, the Beach House b&b. It's a very cute little house on the bluff overlooking a long stretch of beach, and those snow capped mountains across Kachemak Bay.

And yes, as I mentioned in the previous post, there are eagles outside our window, nesting in the tall pine trees.



This is our view

Location:Sterling Hwy,Homer,United States