Joe was in his element. He could have stayed here a week. Lots to see, just sitting watching the gulls and eagles, the boats being launched by tractor, and the people clamming.
Some natives built a fire next to our camp site and started cleaning their catch of razor clams. They let us watch the mom, an elderly Eskimo woman originally from Nome, cleaning the approximately 60 clams they had dug that morning.
The daughter brought us over a piece of smoked red salmon, which they eat. I believe this is what is fed to the sled dogs in the winter. It was pretty nasty tasting.
Then she brought over some smoked walrus, which they can harvest because they are natives. It was pretty gristly, so we passed on tasting that, although later David was sorry he didn't try it.
The tide swing in Alaska is pretty awesome, and it was really visible in this area. We watched this big rock disappear from sight in about 12 minutes as the high tide came in.
We walked down the beach to watch the tractors retrieve the boats as they came in from a day of fishing. These were mostly charter boats, but there were probably some private ones in there as well. We sat there for almost 2 hours watching. It was pretty chilly, probably in the 50s. John, you might recognize Mazie's sock cap -- I think your Grandma Williams bought it for you at the Grand Canyon when you were 9 years old.
The tractors go up and pick up the boat trailer and back it into the water. This was close to high tide and there were pretty good swells. The boats really come in hard onto the trailer. They would hook up the wench strap and pull the boat out of the water and then drop it so the boat owner could get his truck and come pick up the boat on the trailer.
They had an emergency on one of the boats and the paramedics were waiting for it when the tractor brought it in. Apparently, some man had a heart attack while fishing. I told Tim (our host/guide on Saturday) that he probably was using a 3-lb. weight like he had on my line.
Finally, we decided to leave all this action and go for a drive. Unfortunately, I left my folding chair out and it disappeared while we went on this drive. We went across the Ninilchik River and back through another campground and found a small harbor and a dock where they unload the fish from the commercial boats and truck it to the cannery. We were lucky that one boat was in unloading, so we got to watch that operation.
Then we drove back to an old Russian Orthodox church. It had a cemetery, and a great view of old Ninilchik Village, which was settled in the 19th century.
We came back to the campground and just enjoyed our great campsite for a while. Dave and Mazie were a couple rows behind us, with a view of a marshy area. But you don't find many campsites like this.
We watched eagles and gulls and then a sea lion went by. We were able to watch it for quite a while as it went right past our campsite, maybe 50 yards from the beach.
Joe kept trying to get a picture of a seagull in flight, and he was finally successful.
This morning, we watched them launch the boats, at low tide. They have to back those boat trailers a long ways out before getting them off. Mazie wondered if they ever sink the tractors.
Joe drove the Explorer along the beach - a high point for him. Then we got out in the rain and walked down to watch the clammers. We came upon this starfish that got left behind when the tide went out.
We talked to some of the clam diggers but no one was having much luck. One man said the clams don't like the cold weather, and it was 52 and rainy. We saw a few in buckets, and Mazie got to watch one being dug out, but no one else had any success while we were watching.
The other side of the road we were driving on has a high cliff, and it was just dotted with eagles. They would fly down and find something to eat every once in a while. The last picture is one Joe zoomed in to the second level but it is a little blurry.
Check-out time was noon at the campground, so we went back to the RV and got ready to hit the road for another grueling drive. This time we drove about 20 miles, and are camped at Anchor Point. It started raining about 8:00 last night, rained all night, and hasn't stopped yet. We intend to drive down to Homer and mess around down there for a little while, if it would just quit raining!
We had a pretty good view from our campsite again, not quite like the day before, but we had a view of the Cook Inlet maybe a half-mile off. While we were playing cards this evening, watching lots of eagles in the area, a young bull moose in the grassy area right in front of us. We got to watch him for a while, until our neighbors spooked him, but we didn't get a pictue. But this is the grassy area where he was. There's an eagle on the pole in this picture.
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