Alaska - Kodiak

 

 

The next morning, leaving the coach parked at the Homer American Legion, we boarded the ferry for a ten hour ride to Kodiak.  We had hoped to see lots of whales along the way, but it was raining and very foggy.  After a long boring trip, we arrived at Kodiak Island around 8:30 p.m.  We rented a car and spent two nights at the guest house at the Coast Guard station.  It is the largest Coast Guard base in the country, with three ships and several C130 planes and helicopters and over 1,000 active duty personnel. 

The next morning we drove to the south side of the island.  It was cloudy with periodic rain and very cool.  But the Kodiak motto is “Gear up and go” so we did.  We had a good day and enjoyed talking with several fishermen and campers along the way. 

 

 The second day was clear and sunny and warmer.  We drove to the north side of the island, again enjoying the beautiful scenery.  

 

 Unfortunately, we never saw any of the 3500 Kodiak bears.  They are the largest brown bears in the world, with some males over 1,000 pounds.  There are less than 80 miles of roads on the island and we drove all of them.  We had a good visit and would like to come back again someday.  

The return ferry trip was longer, 13 hours, with a stop at Port Lion on the north side of Kodiak Island.  It was a night trip so we slept most of the way, arriving back in Homer at 7 a.m.  We had planned to spend a few days in Homer and on the Kenai Peninsula but the rainy cold weather encouraged us to head back to Anchorage.  We stopped briefly at Anchor Point, the western-most  point of the US that can be reached by roads.  So now we have hit the eastern-most, southern-most, and western-most points.  We will hit the northern-most point when we drive to Purdue Bay.