Day 6 - Thursday, August 20, 2009

We got up early this morning because it was the lowest tide during the period we were in Kodiak. Each visit during the lowest tide, we always go to Fort Abercrombie State Park to go tide pooling. I had a bit of a time finding the tide pools, but it wasn't long and we were in the tide pools. Usually this is a wonderful place to go when the tides are low. There is a huge variety of amazing animals on and among the rocks - Christmas anemones, blood stars, sun stars, chitons, sometimes octopi, and many, many others. I was enormously disappointed, however, to find that almost the entire area was covered in kelp. We saw a few starfish and anemones, but there wasn't a single pool that wasn't choked with kelp. Oh well - we couldn't complain too much: this was the 1st thing we'd done all week that didn't turn out fantastically.

Christmas Anemone

Blood Star

On the way out we stopped by the ranger station to see pictures of what we could have seen, and Josh showed up with the day off again. So, from the ranger station we drove around to some of the best sites in the park. The best is this overlook above a high cliff where there are some old guns remaining, some interpretive signs, and some trail heads. During the war they had a spot light here that could illuminate objects 18 miles away. This is also a great spot to look out for whales. It is a beautiful spot.

Another beautiful sight: a homemade truck-crane, or 'trane', or 'cruck'. This is my next big project!

We went back to the house for a late breakfast, then headed back out to go into town and the docks. Ed and Jeanette went back to the the Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge headquarters a couple of blocks away, and took pictures of the old St. Herman Russian Orthodox Seminary. I've always wanted to go it, and wish I had. It's beautiful in there.

Josh, Sarah, and I went to walk around the boats on the city docks. These are mostly small personal fishing boats, but there are some beautiful sailboats in there as well. We were admiring one when the owner popped his head out and started talking to us. He and his wife were from Norway and were retired, and had been sailing around the world for years. We were talking for a while and they invited us on their boat. Josh took a tour of the galley while the rest of us sat in the back talking to the wife. Eventually, Josh finagled a potential invitation to join them on the next leg of their journey - for the past several months they had a girl from California (?) helping them with the sailing, but she was nearing the end of her trip and were looking to find a new shipmate. Hopefully it will work out.

To our right is the sailboat from Norway. Ed & Jeanette had caught up with us by this time.

Some cool anemones on the pier pilings.

We finished with the city docks and then walked over to the commercial fishing docks. This is where the big fishing bats are, including a few enormous commercial boats, like a couple from 'The Deadliest Catch", like this one: the Cornelia Marie.

After lunch, we drove back out to White Sands Beach and Josh lead us on a hike. It turned out to be a pretty long hike, with some steep parts and parts over uneven loose rocks, so I was worried about Sarah, but she did fine, and it was a beautiful hike. We started out going up a steep hill and coming out above a cliff overlooking White Sands Beach and the bay, then following the coastline for quite a while, ending up on a cliff on a grassy spit of land overlooking the ocean and the narrow waterway between Kodiak and Spruce Island. It was a gorgeous spot and I could have stayed there for a long time.

The hike back was along a slightly different trail through the forest. The forests here are amazing - so incredibly green. Not a great amount of floral diversity, but still green and beautiful and with lots of edible plants. We saw lots of salmon berries still around, but also currants and blueberries. We walked by a pretty pond created by a beaver dam, when we saw the beaver swimming back toward his dam. He got pretty close to us several times, and we tried to be quiet and still so that it would get closer (it was just out of good picture range), but every time it slapped it's tail on the water and swam a little farther off.

Before going back to the house, we drive up to the top of the mountain above Kodiak. It used to be a fairly hairy drive - narrow dirt road with lots of sharp turns and switchbacks and nearly vertical drops for hundreds of feet off the sides with nothing there to keep you from rolling off. But, the road was wider and more straight than before - improvements made to accommodate the enormous trucks and equipment that had to be shipped up there to construct the wind turbines. We stayed up there admiring the views of the city and water in 1 direction, the sunset over the mountains and wild interior of the island in the other direction, and the graceful enormity of the wind turbines above us. We stayed up there for as long as we could, but it was pretty cold with the wind howling. This was a great day and a great way to end a wonderful trip to Kodiak. I can't wait to come back. Hopefully Jackson will be able to come with us next time.

Soon we were back at the house eating dinner and packing up. I hate this part of any trip.

Before we get away from Kodiak, I just remembered that 1 night (I don't remember which night) Josh made us some Halibut chowder with sweet potatoes. It was really good. Josh, please send me that recipe!