The Green Isle of Kodiak

Day 77 – July 17 finds us flying out to Kodiak Island where we will stay for 3 nights at Cliff House Bed and Breakfast.  Ron and I met Marty and Marion Owen last year when we were volunteers at Capitol Reef National Park.  At the time, we couldn’t decide if we wanted to venture to Kodiak – we had heard pros and cons.  Needless to say, they talked us into it.  Marion is a person of many talents – master gardener, professional photographer, author, chef and probably a lot more than what I realize.  Kodiak is a very lush island.  It’s cloudy and a little drizzly this evening, but we are happy to be here.  Here are a few pictures of Marion’s gardens.

We drove out to Ft. Abercrombie and took a walk around.  Very pretty.  This is an outstanding museum!

The museum is located here.

Interesting!

Check the message that is typed here!  So cool that they have this equipment hands on and working!

I think my dad did this type of work in WWII.

Reminds me of a rain forest.

The ripples on White Sands Beach.

Random vehicles found on the side of the roads in Alaska.

Day 78 – July 18  We are up at the crack of dawn on this drizzly morning to meet our fishing guide Dake (Memory Maker Tours). He came to pick us up in his van. We aren’t sure what to expect. He keeps saying that fishing is slow and hard – they just haven’t arrived.  But we’re still in for an adventure. He drove us down the road for about 45 minutes to Olds Creek.  We could see salmon in the water – pinks and King, and some Dolly Varden.  We donned our waders and raincoats. He explained how to fish here. Both guys caught a pink, I got a Dolly, and eventually I got a King.  So fun!  It ended up being a great day as fishing like this was on my bucket list.  After our happy hour, we went to Safeway and got the sides to cook with our pink salmon.  Yummy!  Played a challenging game of Scrabble and called it a night.  We enjoyed learning from Dake today.  I have never waded in that cold of a stream before to fish and just loved the experience.

Donna throwing her line in that cold river!

Greg can see the dolly varden and salmon.

Mary reeling in that king salmon!

What a fight!

Catch of the day!

Yep, not too much as far as count, but all good.

The "cooked" fruits of our labor!

Time to quit with our catch of the day!  Look at the rain clouds behind us!

Day 79 – July 19  I think we all enjoyed sleeping in!  Looking out our picture window we can’t see the mountains across the bay. We decided to drag our feet a little and then head out for some sightseeing.  First stop was at the harbor – so pretty. Found the yacht we will be on this evening for our dinner cruise.  Nice.

 

A lot of Russian influence.

So colorful

There are wind turbins on the hill. They are really self sufficient.

A Japanese cruise ship

Kodiak has the largest coast guard influence.

Next we decided to drive out to Fossil Beach which means we have to drive through the Kodiak Launch Complex.  On our drive, we see the Coast Guard out practicing rescues. Awesome.  Then, we take the road down Pasagshak Road.  We saw a fox, 2 Sitka black tailed deer, an eagle guarding her nest.  Made a stop at Surfers Beach.  Very pretty. Then we get to Fossil Beach.  Pretty cool. Donna and Greg had fun collecting fossils.  Back in town, stopped at the Baranov Museum – a 1794 log cabin.  Very, very good museum! We liked learning about the Russian – American Company.  This building represents an important reminder of the Russian occupancy of Kodiak.  This house – the Erskine House – is significant as the only building remaining as evidence of the historical continuity between the Russian – American Co.  The local natives, the Alutiq lived on Kodiak for 7,500 years.  Their villages were located at the mouth of salmon rivers.  They had a wealthy chief.  Things changed when the Russians arrived in the late 1700’s. Enough history….. although it still blows my mind that we are this close to Russia! And Japan!

Our Coast Guard

Pretty cool to watch.

Check out these fish posing for us. Look like Dolly Varden.

Baby owl

Baby owl playing peekaboo!

Ron watching a local haul in a salmon.

Eagle guarding her nest.

Fossil Beach

Fossil Beach

Greg and Donna at Fossil Beach

Looks like a tail

Launch pad?

Locals fishing

The ship we get our fish on in the lower 48.

Great museum!

Tonight we went on a dinner cruise with Marty on the “Galley Gourmet”, their 35’ yacht.  Chef Joe’l made us an awesome dinner of sea cod and halibut. Unfortunately, the weather sucked – as in very foggy, misty and rough seas.  Only saw some sea lions and puffins, but still enjoyable.

 

Leaving the harbor on the Galley Gourmet.

Captain Marty Owen

The clowns of the harbor.

Birds

Puffins

Mary and Ron getting ready to be served dinner.

Our dinner

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Day 80 – July 20 finds us flying back to our “homes” that we left behind in Anchorage.  We did have a lunch stop at Gwennies. Then it’s laundry, shopping and planning next week!