A few scenes from a recent camping trip. You never know what you will see. Just go. Look!
Tag Archives: kayak
I love to watch and photograph birds from my kayak. It is very quiet and animals are more comfortable around it than around an upright person. Of course, it’s not a stable platform and it’s always moving at least a little bit so not the absolute best for photography but still.
This time I found a very cooperative and tiny Western Wood Peewee that called and called and I am surprised I didn’t get any images with its mouth open. Also a baby American Robin, an immature gull and the elegant Common Loons. Topping it of was a beaver, dragging a branch to its lodge to feed its youngsters.
And on a hike I found a couple new to me, wildflowers.
We spent last week camped at Odlin Park on Lopez Island in the San Juan archipelago. The weather was mostly lovely with just one windy day and we were able to be on the water a fair amount. Sky got to try dock diving and Luna poked around the wrack line for smelly stuff, occasionally going in the water. We set crab traps, lost two of them on the windy day, and Ken fished (unsuccessfully) for salmon. We shared good food with good friends at our beachfront picnic table. The day we left, wildfire smoke from Oregon and California filled the air and we were ok with the end of the camping trip.
Expensive transportation to the islands
Our beachfront campsite
So many kinds of boats
Freight and heavy equipment travels on barges
Crab trap floats
Mangy looking crow on the beach
Cute little Mew Gull
Resilience
Madronna trees
Pelagic Cormorants cling to cliff faces
On top of a cliff
From Juneau we flew to Anchorage and drove to Homer. Homer is located on Kachemak Bay on the Kenai Peninsula. It’s a beautiful drive, first passing along the Turnagin Arm of Cook Inlet and then through the mountains. The snow-covered mountains in Alaska seemed never-ending. It rained a good part of the way but now and then the clouds would part and there would another incredible vista of glaciers and volcanoes.
The Kenai River was impressive and had lots of little towns along it but they were mostly deserted since fishing season had not started. Once we got to Homer, we were treated to more mountain views across Kachemak Bay. The best weather days of our stay were the day we arrived and the day we left! Otherwise, it was intermittently rainy and/or windy. One day it was very rainy and windy and a planned boat trip was cancelled. Because of the weather, I never seemed to have a camera when I needed it so there are few photos of the birds that we saw while attending the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival.
Someone told us there are 10,000 sea otters in Kachemak Bay and they have consumed just about all of the sea urchins. This is good for the kelp beds. We took a boat trip across the bay where we were told 10,000 Black-legged Kittiwakes (a type of gull) and 5,000 Common Murres nest on Gull Island. Tufted Puffins nest there too but they hadn’t arrived in big numbers yet. We also kayaked there.
The view from the bluff where we stayed
On the spit at Homer
We took a water taxi across the bay to go kayaking
Sea otters are pretty adorable
An oyster farm
Our taxi comes to get us
Xtra Tuff boots are the state book of Alaska. Or maybe it’s a cult.
A tractor boat launch
There was a boat in this marina that was featured in the Deadliest Catch
Sea otter on the rocks
Morning choices
Sky is a big fan of local artists
Donna made lots of wonderful paintings
Ken in Vinny, the one person dinghy
Pulling up the crab trap
Donna helped supervise
I don’t know what we would have done if he’d tipped it over
There’s a good one
Ken said we could all have a crab for a pet. Kim’s crab was named Tyrone.
Maybe Laura had Barnacle Bill?
Mine was Buster
An Outward Bound group spent a lot of time looking out at the water before finally getting in their kayaks for a camping trip.
Rosie and Kim supervised the afternoon crab trap pull
Not that one
Oh boy, we got limits!
The red one is a rock crab
Rock crab and Dungeness crab
Hey, where’s my guy going in Vinny?
Don just took Vinny back to the dock.
Another good day at the beach.
And then it was time to go home.
My Everyday Photos 