Something’s fishy about Seward and Homer, AK

The drive from Anchorage to Seward, takes you along the coastline of the Cook Inlet’s Turnagain Arm.  The views were so lovely even on that cloudy drizzly day.  We followed along the tracks for the Alaska Railroad for the most part. Hoped to see a train, but our schedules did not coordinate.  That’s ok.  We stopped at one of the many scenic turnouts and enjoyed the breathtaking beauty. 

There must be a funny story about that yellow chair out there…

We settled into our very comfy but not necessarily keen location of a campground just a couple miles outside of “downtown” Seward.  It was a KOA campground, known for lovely clean showers and luxurious laundry room.  We enjoyed both, immensely.  I got right to my three loads of laundry as soon as we got set up.  Shortly afterwards, Heidi from Seward Dog Lodge met us at our campsite.  Heidi came to meet Agi and Bodi as she was going to come several times over the next two days as Vic and I had no-dog activities planned.  Agi and Bodi loved Heidi immediately.  

Heidi came and checked in on Bodi and Agi while we were out.  They loved her!!

The next morning, Vic and I boarded the Kenai Fjords tour boat “Explorer” where we would spend the next 9 hours aboard touring the National Park by water.  We were so lucky to have the sun out for most of the day.  We saw bald eagles, puffins, sea otter, harbor seals, sea lions, orca whales, humpback whales, huge glaciers that calved into the water, coastal mountain goats.  The following are just some of the things we saw/experienced. 

beach. 

Sea Lions

Aialik Glacier

I think my favorite sight was seeing the humpback whale make bubble nets and then swim up the middle to make his great catch!

We were treated to a salmon bake dinner on Fox Island where we could spend some time on the pebbly beach

On Fox Island for dinner 

We went to bed early that night as we had a 7am start time the next morning for a salmon and rock fish fishing charter.  We met Captain David and First Mate Sebastian that morning at Miller’s Landing Fish Charters.  They took care of us of all morning as we pulled in 4 salmon (2 Silver and 2 Pinks) and 3 Rockfish.  We got those all professionally packaged and frozen to store in our freezer and have for the next many many meals.  I didn’t get any pictures of us actually fishing as we were all too busy.  The fish were coming in the boat so fast.  I’m proud to say, that the first fish caught was mine.  The guys were asking: “Hey Lynda, just how were you pulling up your line? And bobbing your pole??” 

Our fishing vessel Avery.  It was funny because they had to tow us with us all in the boat up the hill, down the street and then our onto the beach to launch us. That was a new experience… we reversed it when we came in 

Our prized fresh catch at Highliner Restaurant in Seward, ready to be prepped by them

Our chef turning our catch into something yummy! 

Fresh grilled salmon 

Vic says, “yum!”

 We moved to Homer, about a 4 hour drive from Seward to check out the scene on the western side of the Kenai Peninsula.  Here, we drove out the 4.5 mile spit in Homer where our campground was at the very end.  We opted for a boon docking beach front site and we did not regret it.  The view here was probably the best yet.   Once again, sand has made its way in; I am not a fan.

This is an image of the spit I found in the internet.  It’s a great shot of what the area looks like.  Our campsite in way down out on the very end 

Our campsite

Our view for 4 days!

The tides here moved 27 feet and we had fun at low tide.  Plenty of room to let the dogs off the leash and stretch their legs.  

Vic and I took our bikes out early Saturday morning to attend the Homer Farmers Market.  We enjoyed a steaming cup of fresh French press coffee and a Taiwanese breakfast sandwich.  This was a nice 10 mile bike ride that we thoroughly enjoyed. 

The bike path from the spit to the mainland 

Homer’s Farmers Market

The coffee ☕️ 

The Taiwanese Breakfast sandwich 

This is a fishing town and Halibut is the star of the show.  Vic got the chance to go fishing again and this time for halibut.  I stayed back with the dogs and spent time trying to clean up the camper a bit. 

Vic didn’t just bring in a halibut, he also got a Silver Salmon, a cod, and sole. 

We will be eating fish for quite a while.  The night he came back from the fishing charter with the halibut we took it over to to Captain Patties fish restaurant and had them cook it up for us. 

Fried fresh caught halibut

Our view from our table at Capt Patties, Homer 

So on our way out of town the last morning we stopped into Homer Fish Processing where we picked up the rest of Vic’s cache of cleaned, portioned, packaged and then frozen halibut, salmon, sole, and cod: 13 pounds!  So combine this with our 9 pounds from Seward, we have 22 pounds of frozen fish in our freezer. 

Our freezer with 22 pounds of cleaned, portioned, packaged Alaska salmon, halibut, cod and sole. 

As we are now heading back up to Anchorage, we stopped at Anchor Point just to say we have driven to the most West we could go.  This marks the point where we are headed back towards home…but still many many more adventures to go before that!