July 7: We drove from Homer to Kenai, parked at Beluga Lookout RV Park, and had a group dinner at Paradisos Restaurant nearby. We enjoyed a great meal, including prime rib (they even cooked mine!), salad, veggies, and yummy sorbet “sundae” for dessert.
July 8: Because we are participating in only one “tour” activity at this stop, we had a quiet day of catching up on laundry, housekeeping, napping, etc. Many of the other people in our group packed in three days of flights and boat trips to the other side of the Cook Inlet. They went to fish for salmon and “capture” bears with their cameras.
“Fishing” for salmon consists of casting a bare hook into the water and snagging a salmon in the mouth. The salmon don’t feed in fresh water, so there is no bait on the hook. Salmon snagged somewhere other than the mouth are supposed to be returned to the water. In the area our people were fishing, the limit was usually three salmon. Most people caught their limit within the half hour allotted to each boat at the mouth of a stream.
July 9: Most of our traveling companions were fishing today, so Dave and I had another quiet day to ourselves. In addition to running a couple of errands, we drove out to the end of the Kenai Spur Highway. When he was working here for a month in 1989, this was the route his group used for access to the area in which they were doing seismic exploration. We recognized a few landmarks, but not many. The area has really built up, as you might expect, but it was fun to see it again. Along the drive, we also saw a moose cow watching us from the woods along the highway.
Back in Kenai, very near our campground, there is a little Russian Orthodox Church built in 1841 that we had seen when we were here in 1989. We had hoped to see inside it again and maybe go inside this time. Unfortunately, the building was locked and there are curtains over the windows, but the building is still there. Over the last few years, mold growth had seriously compromised the wooden walls. Fortunately, a preservation group has eradicated the mold and is now reinforcing the walls. The little church is well kept and still used for weekend worship services.
July 10: Due to rain and low cloud cover, our trip to the Chinitna area today for bear viewing was cancelled, so we substituted for that a flight to Redoubt Bay Lodge on a 10-passenger Otter aircraft and back on a 4-passenger Beaver. We had the same pilot for both flights, and he was quite good. In spite of the advanced age of both aircraft, they seemed quite air-worthy and performed well. The weather was still rainy and generally miserable, but from our vantage point in a covered (but NOT enclosed) boat we were able to (finally!) see a mother bear and two cubs come to the shore near us and feed. We were anchored near where a small creek emptied into the bay, and salmon had begun their annual run up the creek … thus, the presence of bears seeking fish. Even though this involved 2 hours of waiting in wet, cold conditions, we were rewarded with quite a show from the bears. They, of course, were in their natural setting and VERY close by. We didn’t feel endangered, though, because they were so completely focused on the salmon and not us! (See photos below.) Several small boats of salmon-fishing tourists were in the water near us, and the bears paid them little attention as well. Our guide for this voyage is a Ph.D. naturalist who, together with his wife, fostered 3 cubs a number of years ago and is quite knowledgeable about bears in the wild. He was very interesting to listen to, and I’ve enjoyed reading one of several books he has written.
We enjoyed a small, sumptuous meal at the lodge. The meal included fresh “wild caught” salmon prepared by a chef somewhere on the grounds of this tiny, exclusive resort. We enjoyed the refreshing lunch while enjoying views of the lake with sea planes coming and going.
After returning to Kenai, we dried off and prepared for tomorrow’s move to Seward.
