Today was a note-worthy day for several reasons! First, we are currently in Homer, Alaska for a few days with Heather’s Uncle Richard. He has flown in for a week to visit and explore the Kenai Peninsula with us! Second, we took a scenic cruise to Seldovia, Alaska. Finally, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Blue skies and bright sunshine were in abundance, which can be a rarity for Alaska. This was noteworthy enough that our boat captain greeted us this morning by congratulating us on cruising with them on their third sunny day of the year!
Our main event for the day was our cruise to Seldovia with Rainbow Tours. On our way out of the harbor, we passed a cruise ship that the captain said is the first cruise ship they have had here since before the pandemic! Crazy! Anyway, this was a scenic cruise around Kachemak Bay that left from the Homer Spit, cruised around Gull Island which hosts as many as 20,000 nesting seabirds each summer, and docked in Seldovia for a couple of hours before returning to Homer. We were very hopeful to see whales, but that wasn’t meant to be today. We did, however see a harbor seal, many sea otters, a ton of different sea birds including puffins, and several bald eagles. The landscape was also phenomenal. During most of the cruise we had views of mountains, glaciers, and several volcanoes surrounding the beautiful blue waters of the bay.
According to the website where we booked our tickets, the stop in Seldovia was supposed to be a three hour stop, but we actually only had about two hours. We had planned to do a short hike, visit the historic area of town, and then check out the visitor center, but two hours was not enough to get all this in. We chose to do the hike to Outside Beach first and completely lost track of time while exploring, taking photos, and eating a quick picnic lunch. We lost track of time so much that we had to absolutely BOOK IT back and still ended up being 10 minutes late and holding up the whole boat. Yikes! How embarrassing! At any rate, Outside Beach was stunning. There were large rocks out in the water and surrounding the beach and some sea glass mixed in with the sand and shells. We would have enjoyed spending even more time at the beach and are sorry we didn’t get to see the other parts of town that we had hoped to. If we have any complaint about this cruise, it is that the stop in Seldovia wasn’t long enough!
Upon returning to Homer, we browsed around the Spit for a while before heading in for the night. We really enjoyed the geography of the Spit and walking around on the beach a bit. It was also interesting to see the catches being brought in from the day’s fishing charters, and seeing them being cleaned straight out of the water. Otherwise, though, we were less than impressed with the Spit. It really just seems like a tourist trap. Tomorrow we plan to explore other parts of and areas around Homer and hope to find it to be a little more authentic Alaskan.
At any rate, this was our first real experience with coastal Alaska, and a day on the water was the perfect introduction. It doesn’t look like our luck with the weather will hold out, but we will find ways to continue enjoying this phenomenal place no matter what. Keep an eye out to see what the three of us get into next!
Until next time!
Good recap of the day!
It was so much fun.
I was confident, however, that the boat people would not leave us stranded on the island!
We were less than confident. We would not have been surprised in the least if we had returned to the dock only to see the boat pulling off in the distance! They probably should have left us!
More good travel adventures. I bet you had fun even with that big lug with you.
He didn’t cramp our style too much!