HOMER

Very happy we included Homer in our route. A really neat place. We got there just before the fishing derby weekend, which was bringing a lot of fishermen into the city. We parked down on the 'spit' as it's called, a 2 mile stretch of narrow beach you can see in one of the pictures. A stop at the visitor center on the road into town gets you a lot of great information from a motivated clerk. The floor had this really neat stained glass mural on it. The picture does not do it justice, it was about 7-8 feet across. There is a lot of parking out on the spit, no problem for big rigs. We stayed out there for 3 nights, parked right next to the marina. We ate halibut fish and chips at the "Fresh Catch" restaurant across the street from where we were parked. They do this kind of Japanese batter thing to the fish that really makes them delicious, not at all greasy. It's light and fluffy?

Here's something you may already know about halibut: A halibut begins life with eyes on opposite sides of its head. As it develops the left eye migrates to the right side. This helps prepare it for a successful life as a bottom fish. Since they lay on their left (white) side on the bottom, it makes little sense to have an eye on that side. With both eyes facing up, on the right (camouflaged) side, the halibut is well adapted to sneaking up on its prey. Halibut are considered to be right sided. We saw a picture of a halibut that was 12 feet long and weighed 1000 lbs! It had been caught in a gill net.

On a walk around the spit area we came across this motorhome. The guy must take off the flower pots before he moves and he must have added a lot of weight. One of the new condos on the beach shows just how low the azimuth is up here. The dish is practically perpendicular! Next is a picture of a chart that shows the different kinds of salmon and Eloise took pictures of some fishermen cleaning their catch. In the one picture you can see the salmon eggs. Did you know that out of 3000 fertilized eggs from one fish, only 400 'fry' (hatchlings) survive, of them only 100 'smolts' (small fish), then only 6 survive to adulthood, but ONLY TWO will survive long enough to return to their native waters and spawn!

As you can see, there are a lot of boats docked in Homer. This is a 1000 slip marina. Note the 4 lane boat launch. Parking on the spit was really neat, the sunset as you can see was pretty spectacular. You might even notice Gertie there in one of the pictures.

We signed up for a cruise out to the rookery and lunch at the nearby islands' Rookery Restaurant. Yep, 2 fer 1 again. Regular price $60 pp. This was a much smaller boat than the one we had at Seward, only 24 passengers capacity, but less than that on our trip. There was an area up front where you could get outside if you wanted when the boat was going slow around the rookery and other spots where we stopped. But inside was good viewing, and we didn't feel the need to go out. The restaurant/resort was very posh. Lunch was included in the ticket, and we could choose from about 3 different en trees. Eloise took the cod fish and chips, I took a hamburger and fries! After the halibut I'd had before, I didn't want no darn cod!

Up on top of the rookery was a beacon of some sort, and notice the eagle perched regally on top. Whenever he flew out from his position, all the birds on the rookery went nuts flying out of the eagles' way. Another picture shows a pair of eagles in the sky. Check out the precarious sea gull nest. Off in the distance you can just barely see the outline of a volcano spewing some steam. You may need to click on the picture to see it well. There are 13 major volcanoes in Alaska but most are on the Aleutian Chain.

After we got back, we drove up onto the hillside above Homer proper. The road winds up at the Wynn Nature Center. You can see a terrific view of the spit from here as well as the glacier that is across the bay.

I think we both enjoyed Homer very much.