DAY 41 - 43 (6/13 - 6/15): HOMER - Halibut Capital of the World

We drove into Homer via the Seward & Sterling Highways.  Here is a map that shows the area we are now exploring (in PINK, lower left)...the areas that are greyed out, are the areas we have already covered:

The drive along the Turnagain Arm is impressive, but also, sadly, we witnessed the acres of damage from recent fires.

It was a bit of a drive over here and we were not feeling like cooking today, and had to re-stock on groceries, so we stopped at a really good sandwich shop for late lunch (Mike's Alaskan Eatery), and then dinner across the street from camp (The Broken Oar).

Here is our camp for the next 3 nights - Heritage RV Park, right on the Homer Spit! Homer and The Spit were another great recommendation from friend and co-worker Nicole (THANKS Nicole!)

Great weather again in Homer! We spent our first day after breakfast walking down to the end of the spit, and then riding our bikes to downtown.  The entire spit is only about 4.5 miles long. 

We bought salmon cakes from my new favorite store in Home "Salmon Sisters" for dinner and got an update from Dia & Jake that Luke is A-OK...in below photo he has a "fang" of rawhide hanging from his mouth!

Rise & shine...we are going fishing today!

I was all sorts of anxious about this 8 hour trip with "Homer Halibut Hunters"...I have reached that point in my life where I get motion sickness (point proven on our trip to Disneyworld when Barry had to practically carry me back from Animal Kingdom after riding the Banshee and Mt. Everest rides back-to-back).

At the end, the fishing trip was completely worth it!  We had a great Captain (Chuck) and deckhand (Aspen).  Captain Chuck (Charles Winston) hails from Barry's neck of the woods.  Grew up in Compton, went to both of Barry's alma maters - Narbonne HS & Cal State Long Beach!  His mom works at Barry's elementary school - WHAAAAATTTT!?!?  Here are the "Gaucho Bros." (Narbonne Gauchos).

OK...so he is 30+ years younger than Barry, so we asked him how he came to live in Homer, AK.  The story starts with "Well, I met a girl...."

Here we are bringing 'em in (sorry no photos of us bringing in the halibut - too busy...our biceps are KILLING US still!!!)

The most interesting catch of the day was an OCTOPUS!  One of the ladies on board (Carol) had an electric reel due to her arthritis, and she was having a heck of a time using it for the first time.  At one point it just got stuck at the bottom of the ocean, so her hubby Burl had to reel it up for her and when he got it to the surface all we saw was this gigantic orange blob!

Carol & Burl were not into it at all and did not know what to do with it, while our mouths were watering, as was Captain Chuck's!  So Captain kept it and will share a couple of tentacles with us :)

Total catch for our 6 person fishing expedition on the Orion:

What a great day, and a great pre-Father's Day dream come true for Barry...here are the two of them again!

Exhausted!  Tomorrow we are off to Seward!

GOOD NIGHT!

Miles driven: 207 (from Girdwood to Homer)