Soldotna and Homer

Soldotna and Homer have been all about fishing. Soldotna was salmon. Terry and Rose did the salmon fishing and it took them until the day before we left to figure it out. Homer was halibut and it didn't take Bob and I long to figure that out! We took a half day charter out of Homer's small boat harbor. I felt lucky right from the start as the boat was called the Irish and Bob is half Irish.


It took us an hour and forty-five minutes to get to the fishing spot but the minute we dropped the lines in the water the fun began. The sinker would no sooner hit the bottom (about 200 feet down) and you would feel a jerk on the line. Time to reel in . . . and reel in . . . and reel in. Whew,  it was hard work! Because your limit is only 2 halibut a day most of the first fish caught were thrown back as they were "too small". After the skipper moved to a different location the fish started getting some decent size to them and then we had to start making those tough decisions - keep or throw back in and hope for a bigger one. I ended up catching about 8 all together but of course could only keep 2. Everybody on the boat caught their limit and all were about the same size - 15 pounds. Supposedly if you do an all day charter the boat goes further out and you can catch 30-40 pounders. I can't imagine trying to reel in one that big!


In Soldotna we camped near the Kenai River but in Homer we camped on the Homer Spit.


Above is the Kenai River in Soldotna. Below you can see the Homer Spit sticking out in Cook Inlet.


What a place! I can honestly say this was the first really "ah-h-h" site that we stayed in. The spit is a long narrow strip of land that juts out into Cook Inlet so we had water on both sides of us and as we had a beachfront site our front window looked out over the water. We also had a great view of the mountains and the glaciers. We spent a lot of time just walking and enjoying the scenery.

Below are views from front window.





Views of surrounding glaciers.











Small boat harbor in Homer.


Bald eagle.


Unfortunately tomorrow we have to move on. We are headed to Seward and from what I understand the scenery is just as magnificent there. We hope to do a glacier/wildlife tour of the Kenai Fjords National Park.