Took a day trip to historic Seldovia today. Our ship was the 75 foot M/V Discovery. Our run time to Seldovia was 2 hours.

The cruise included a lap around Gull Island Bird Rookery for some bird watching. Gull Island is more like a big rock plunked down in Cook Inlet. It is COVERED in pelagic (ocean going) birds and bird POOP. There were Tufted Puffins, Common Mores, Pelagic and Red Faced Cormorants and Glucose Gulls. Loved the Puffins with their comic bright orange bills and white pig tails; the Cormorants stood there with their necks stretched out, wings spread, soaking up the sun; Murres paddled around in their black and white tuxedos, looking like tiny penguins; overhead, the large and noisy Gulls soared and dived, catching fish to feed their fuzzy chicks. It was an amazing site, 10,000 birds clinging to every nook and cranny, the noise was deafening. I wondered how parents found their chicks in such chaos.

We were lucky enough to get seats in the wheelhouse with Captain Tim Cashman (owner/ operator.) Originally a cop in San Diego, he now owns Alaska Coastal Marine and runs five boats out of Soldotna AK (on the Kenai half way between Anchorage and Homer.) For those of you who love hunting and fishing check out Alaska Coastal Marine and Captain Tim’s fabulous boats. Here’s a picture of Captain Tim doing his Captain Jack Sparrow ARRRRR face.

We cruised through Eldred Passage passing a raft of Sea Otters munching shellfish for lunch. Two of Alaska’s active volcanoes were visible on the cruise. Mt Redoubt and Mt Iliamna were chugging out clouds of steam in the distance. 

An interesting feature of Cook Inlet is the fresh water that comes in from the melting ice fields. The fresh water is only a couple of inches deep and sits on top of the saltwater and is clearly visible. Fresh water is on the left.

The town of Seldovia was severely damaged during the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake which registered 9.2 on the Richter Scale. Most of the town was built directly on the waterfront, with a boardwalk that connected homes and businesses together creating a main street. Cook Inlet's waters prior to the earthquake would rise or fall 26 feet every six hours during the peak tides. After the earthquake the entire land mass dropped six feet causing higher tides peaking at 32 feet which completely submerged the boardwalk and flooded homes and businesses along the waterfront. Eventually much of the town was rebuilt on higher ground, only a small section of the original boardwalk remains. Fortunately the town has retained much of its original charm. We had lunch at the Mad Fish and then walked the town. We visited the 1800’s Russian Orthodox Church on the hill, poked our heads in all the tourist shops, ate homemade ice cream, and admired all the charming homes and gardens.

We shopped the Spit in Homer today. For those of you familiar with the TV show the Deadliest Catch, the Time Bandit sails out of Homer and has a little retail shop here. It was pretty cool checking out all the Time Bandit goodies. We watched one of the chartered fishing boats come in with a lot of Halibut. We went to the weigh in, the fish on the left weighed exactly 100 pounds, the one next to it was 80 pounds.

After all that shopping we wound up at the Salty Dog Bar. OMG, my daughter would LOVE THIS PLACE. There are thousands of $1 dollar bills tacked on the walls and ceiling. Each bill has someone’s name and the date on it. Bras, panties, buoys, and other strange items intersperse the green backs. We grabbed a table and wound up sharing it with folks from New Zealand and Germany. We all agreed this was the best bar we’d ever been in! Tomorrow we leave for Seward.