Days 77 - Homer

Waiting For Fish

We spent three nights in Homer, primarily so Harry could go Halibut fishing. We didn't do very much.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, we found that Ben's BMW had been joined by a Honda Africa Twin, a model not sold in the US. It didn't have US plates either...and there was a second tent on the beach in front of us. It belonged to a young man from Australia who was Italian. He'd just ridden from Ushaia, Argentina to Deadhorse, Alaska and then to Homer. He was on his way to New York before returning to Australia. He left pretty early in the morning.

I forgot to ask why he'd ridden to Homer, but I suspect that it was to go through Anchor Point, which is just before Homer and is the westernmost point in the Western Hemisphere that can be reached by road (unless you include roads reachable by the Alaskan Marine Highway ferry sytem, then it would be a road on Unalaska, the westernmost port for the ferry). The easternmost point is north of Recife, Brazil, so he might have gone through there as well. This is all supposition based on what I would do if I had the energy to do that kind of ride.

It was a nice morning so Sally, Ellen and I went in search of the Aleutian Tern. They were supposed to be some up by the Homer Airport. We also wanted to look over the flats across the road from the campground, Mud Bay, for shorebirds, so we brought along spotting scopes. We found no shorbirds as the tides was all the way out. With 20 foot tides, Mud Bay is aptly named. Mud as far as the eye could see.

It was a bit of an uphill trudge to the airport road. On the side of the road opposite the runway, we could see the lake used as a float plane area, Beluga Lake. It ended in a wetland which had a viewing area. We first searched there but only found a few ducks very far out. No terns were seen at the airport, so we made the long trudge back to Speedy.

By the time we returned, Ben had also left to continue his ride and we now had the site to ourselves.

We took the bikes out for the first time since Denali and rode up into the town of Homer, away from the spit, stopping first at the weekly farmer's market. There were lots of good vegetable stands, but we didn't buy anything, preferring to wait until our ride back to the campground. This turned out to be a mistake. 

After leaving the market, we made our way up to the visitor center for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge itself is not in Homer, but is very spread out. Most of the Aleutian Islands are part of the refuge and many of the other offshore islands are at least partly refuge land. It also includes much of the waters  off the coast. The visitor center was a very modern and large building with many exhibits explaining the refuge and the wildlife it protects.

We then pedaled further to the Homer downtown looking for a place Ellen might get a haircut and a place for lunch. We didn't find the former and ended up at the local diner for lunch...another mistake. The food was mediocre and Homer is known for good seafood.

The final place we wanted to stop at was the Homer library. Like most libraries they have high-speed Internet access. I wanted to upload Speedy Journal entries and update software. It went well but took too long and we missed the closing time at the farmer's market. Needless to say, the chef was not very happy.