We visited them all – Soldotna, Kenai, and Homer. It’s been wet a lot and cloudy the most of the time. Fortunately it hasn’t been cold – generally high 50s or low 60s.
We stayed in Soldotna at Edgewater RV Park – a good location right next to the Kenai River and within walking distance of the downtown area. And we could go to the fish walks and watch people fish along the bank. The fish walks have been installed to allow people to fish without damaging the river banks where the small fish need to hide and find food on their way to the ocean. We understand the big fish run starts next week. So though we did see some folks fishing, we didn’t see many fish being caught.
We spent a day driving 85 miles south of Soldotna to Homer, AK. At about the halfway point is Ninilchuk where Gordie and Rich signed up to go on a halibut fishing charter a couple of days later. We drove to the beach in Ninilchuk where there was a -5.3 tide and the beach was alive with people clamming. They were camped everywhere. There the licenses allowed folks to dig 62 clams a day – that’s a lot of clams.
Homer is a very neat town. There is a 4-mile long spit that is just wide enough for the road and businesses on each side. There were lots of cute shops, restaurants, lots of charter companies, and several campgrounds. The campgrounds were full, as there is a 3 month long halibut tournament there. Here right next to the road we saw an eagle on a post platform eating a salmon. We enjoyed watching several eagles during our time in the area.
We also drove to the town of Kenai and then up to the small town of Nikinski – the town is mostly there to support a storage facility for oil for the14 oil platforms that operate off the coast there in Cook Inlet. We also found a small brewery (a hobby gone wild) run by Frank Kissik and his wife. We tasted several beers and Frank gave us a tour of his very small facility. He doesn’t even bottle his beer yet, but he does sell kegs to local restaurants. We bought a ‘growler’ of beer to have with our dinner the next night. Have you ever heard of a ‘growler’??
The guys went on their charter at 4:30AM in the rain. It rained most of the day. They each caught their 2-halibut fish limit which the crew of the boat filleted. They brought the fish back to the RVs and we spent about an hour cutting and packaging it. We are very lucky that Diann and Rich borrowed an extra freezer for their RV to put it in. We had the halibut cheeks and some fillets that night for dinner – WOW; just delicious.
Then there was the day we went to Kenai Landing – an old cannery and fish processing warehouse where there are some shops (very few). We happened into the processing area and chatted with the Processing manager who kindly gave us a brief tour of the place. Diann asked him if there was any way we could buy some of the lovely salmon they had there. Well, amazingly enough he sold us two Coho and two Sockeye salmon (about 26 lbs total) for under $5 a pound. We felt like we’d won the lottery. So once again we took fish back to the RVs. These we cut into steaks and topped off that freezer. We are going to enjoy all this beautiful fish for quite a while.
Next we head to Seward and the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
That’s it for now! Ellen & Gordon Meade
