Homer, Alaska

We have spent the past week in the Halibut Capital of the World! Homer is a wonderful little fishing community at the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and it is a destination for tourists from around the world who want to experience the beauty of the state. We had some foggy, rainy days of chilling drizzle and some stunningly beautiful days filled with blue skies and sunshine. A hot summer day is about 18 degrees Celsius and the ocean hovers around 8 degrees C, so it took quite a bit of courage to get in for a swim! Brrr!

We spent the first few days touring the museums, visitor centres and the famed Homer Spit. We indulged in delicious halibut fish n' chips and fried clams which even Heidi gobbled up! (Deep fried anything on a cool, foggy day tastes great!) Ice cream for dessert was an added bonus, so we let them run around on the beach until 10 pm to burn off the sugar. The tides range 25 feet here, so the beaches are a massive playground at low tide and folks are out until all hours under the midnight sun.

Our next order of business was to get the oil changed on the motor before we headed out to sea to find puffins, sea otters, and seals. The girls tried their hands at fishing and brought one Pollock after another into the boat. We returned all these fish to the sea, but the girls loved the thrill of catching these gullible fish. Mark put the downriggers on to catch some Coho salmon, but he had no luck as the Pollock kept eating the bait!

I headed out on a kayaking trip with True North Kayaks which has been running trips in this area for over 22 years and spent a beautiful day out on the water. Mark and the girls opted for a Halibut Fishing Charter and they raked in their maximum limit. The girls had great fun and felt the burn of hauling halibut from 180 feet below. We brought one of our fillets to a local restaurant and feasted on blackened halibut and fish n' chips which were less than 2 hours out of the water. Mark got a local packing company to vacuum seal the remaining fillets which now stock our freezer to capacity. I think we will be feasting on fish for a long time to come!

We are sitting in the camper in the pouring rain now, tackling laundry, downloading photos and recharging batteries before we leave Homer tomorrow. It has been a beautiful week and as I look out to the tents camped on the beach, I am very grateful to be inside a warm, dry camper. A hot shower, a mug of steaming tea, clean pajamas...these are the good things in life. Enjoy!

In and around Homer

Pollock Fishing and Halibut Cove

Rita's Kayak Trip

Sunny Sunday Boat Trip

Halibut Fishing Trip