Beach Day in Homer

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Hooray!! we are officially all on Alaska time. We slept until about 7:30 and after muffins at the B&B headed to Bishop’s beach. We walked along the beach at low tide and met a couple from Texas and a woman from Homer that were watching a pair of Sandhill cranes and their 2 young. We watched them until they took off. We saw a bald eagle in the distance on its nest. We continued on up the beach exploring tide pools until Gabbi called us over. She had found a spongy looking thing in the sand. When she touched it, it got smaller and squirted water out at her. After some more investigation and finding some that had completely opened, we determined that they were anemones. After some more exploring, we hiked back along the beach to the Beluga slough trail, which took us to the Oceans & Islands Visitor Center, which is a partnership of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the Kachemak Bay National Research Reserve. The Center was fabulous. We learned a lot from some great hands on exhibits and a short film about the research vessel Tiglax (pronounced Tech-la). We spent about an hour and a half there and then hike back to the car. We spent some time walking the streets of Homer (there wasn’t much of a downtown that we ever found), picking raspberries and looking at beautiful pottery. Then we met up with our friends Mike, Stephanie, and Dylan Brady. Mike is the manager of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, who was vacationing with his family. They came back to the B&B (which had a full kitchen) for a dinner of spaghetti, salad, and king crab legs, followed by ice cream. Danielle and I went out onto the deck at 10:45 to look at the stars, but it was still too bright out too see any. The twilight here lasts forever.

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