Fire, Wind, and Water

I made it late to a solstice party last week where I hung out with a few hippies, listened to some good bluegrass jams, ate nummy snacks and drank a good share of mead. The people whose house we went to own the meadery in town. Mead is like a wine brewed from honey and berries. It is mm mm good and will get you druck fast. Don't worry girls, I'll bring some home for you. At the party I met Ahna, a potter here in town who wants me to do some work for her. I don't have a lot of extra time but I hope to make it over there sometime soon. I did make it to Lisa's house this week for a wood firing that she was doing. She is another potter who lives in Homer and wanted me to see how she does things. It was very cool to see her setup and style and she let me help stoke the kiln.

Yesterday I went on the ocean for the first time. I took a charter to go halibut and king salmon fishing. We started out about 17 miles down the bay from Homer, only about a mile from the Cook Inlet. There were five other older men from Montana, Captain Pete, one deckhand, and one other guy. The first five hours or so were easily the worst experience of my life and those poor gentlemen had to listen to my wretching. Lesson of the day: don't go on the sea if you get sea sick. The water was pretty choppy and the weather was chilly and it did not sit well with me, hence the painful smile I barely cracked in this picture. I managed to reel in a pretty small halibut that in any other situation I would have thrown back in hopes for a bigger one. It turns out it was a good idea that I kept it because we had a really slow day fishing.

After halibut fishing we went to calmer waters to try our luck at king salmon. I had the option of getting off when we drove by the Spit but I was feeling a little better and decided to stay...I'm glad I did! We trolled around salmon fishing in a beautiful part of the bay with a great view of the glacier. It started to get real wavy again but for some reason I was totally fine the rest of the day. Maybe it was the scenery.We didn't have any luck catching salmon so Pete took us to an oyster farm in this little bay. The woman there told us about how oysters are harvested and despite my loss of appetite from previous events, I tried my first oyster, fresh from the bay!

This woman, along with a few other farmers, lives on the bluff in a little bay where she sells oysters off of a floating dock or brings them across the bay to Homer. There are all sorts of little coves and lagoons across the bay from Homer which is still considered the Kenai Peninsula but the people who live there have to take boats to get around. I was hoping to see some orcas which are plentiful in this area but we didn't run into any. I did see all sorts of sea otters but didn't get close enough to take any good pictures. They are so cute, they float on their backs and play around in the water. Before we headed back to the harbor, we cruised around Gull Island which has more than 16,000 birds on it everyday of all different species. My favorite are the puffins.

And so, I took my bag of halibut filets and was glad to be on land again but it was an amazing adventure and if I knew it would be a calm day, I'd go again in a heartbeat. I'll probably make it across the bay a couple more times to visit another potter, go kayaking, and hike Poot Peak...all plans in the making. Tomorrow starts a busy busy week here at the inn. There is a group of about 15 guys from Wisconsin who are staying at the lodge next door and I'm stuck with the flower sniffers. Maybe they'll make me an essence that can find me a man.