Wednesday, August 2, 2023: Not Simpson, but Spit!
Info:
And also with the Odyssey this Homer has nothing to do, if one disregards the fact that it goes on from Homer only by ship (or airplane). “Where the land ends and the sea begins” is the motto of the small town with its 5,500 people. This is also where Alaska Highway #1 ends.
Homer Spit is a stretch of land over seven kilometers long and very narrow, extending out into Kachemak Bay. It was formed as a moraine of a glacier. There are several campgrounds and all dock facilities on Homer Spit. It is the tourist center of Homer, and the outermost point is called Land’s End.
In the 1964 earthquake, the Spit lost five meters of its height.
My opinion:
Even if the life of the visitors in Homer mainly takes place on the Spit, the city is worth a closer look. As for me: I had booked the campsite on top of the cliff with a dream view of the volcanoes, Kachemak Bay and Homer for four days. That turned out to be too short, so I stayed five days. Another place where it was hard to leave.
Diary:
Because Homer Spit had to be evacuated a few days before I arrived due to a North Pacific seaquake and tsunami alert, which caused a caravan of hundreds of unhappy campers to move up the hills in the middle of the night along the tsunami evacuation route, I looked for a campsite where the tsunami would have had to be 100 meters high to push me off the cliff. However, the cliff went vertically upwards, and a corresponding earthquake could well have triggered a catastrophe there.
And a volcanic eruption. As part of the Ring of Fire, seven volcanoes are very close by. The Ring of Fire is a 40,000 km long band on the edge of the Pacific Plate where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur frequently due to plate tectonics. Augustine was clearly visible from Annie Way’s seat, steaming away happily. There had been a volcanic eruption on the Aleutian Islands a few days earlier, but it had nothing to do with the seaquake.
Talking to a local, I asked him how so many people could be evacuated from the Spit in time for an impending tsunami. „Oh, they can’t“, meinte der. Okay. – Which he’s probably right about – depending on how fast the tsunami would reach Homer. The alarm before I arrived was fortunately a false alarm, not every earthquake triggers a tsunami, but the sirens go off as soon as there is one.
The first day I just spent on the beach. The climate in Homer is very mild, it was about 20°C, and the locals were throwing themselves into the freezing cold Pacific Ocean, which I wouldn’t even stick a toe in.
By the way, Homer is known for its peony farms, where peonies are grown. They were just starting to bloom – in early August.
When I went to the Spit on the second day to see where the ferry to Seldovia was leaving from, I was surprised. The campgrounds were a mass nightmare, and every possible corner was used for parking, but I basically liked the Spit. You are completely surrounded by sea, sea otters are comfortably lying in the water, the wind is whistling, colorful boats are on the way, there are cafes and restaurants and small stores – really nice. But I was glad I didn’t have to camp there. A mass gathering. But there are also quiet places and a walkway that leads to Land’s End. Sitting in front of a small restaurant with a view of the sea and Kachemak Bay and enjoying a delicious bowl of vegetables and salmon … it’s quite something!
Homer was the furthest point from home on my trip. This is also a reason why I stayed one day longer. I was already past the halfway point, and from Homer I would be on my way back. Somehow I couldn’t believe I had made it this far.
And then someone recommended that I take the ferry across the bay to Seldovia and spend a few hours there. That would be a bit further … but without Annie Way, because the Fast Ferry only carries people.
Just go too far and look around there a bit… I went to Seldovia, wandered around, sat on the patio of a restaurant overlooking the ocean and had a delicious Caesar Salad, wandered around again and sat on a beach for a while looking over to the side of the bay where Homer is located.
Seldovia has a small Russian Orthodox church. Some place names in Alaska bear witness to the country’s Russian past. Strange for me that Russia was now in the West, and not so far away. In fact, Russia and Alaska are only a little more than four kilometers apart because they share a group of islands in the Bering Strait: Big Diomedes belongs to Russia, Little Diomedes to the USA. Between the two runs not only the political border, but also the date line.
The return trip from Seldovia to Homer by ferry was also the beginning of my own return trip. To celebrate this, four whales jumped out of the water – or one four times, I don’t know. Humpback whales seem to love jumping. Again such an incredible experience!
Yes, it was okay. It was half-time, and I had already experienced so much and gained so many insights and talked to countless people, exchanged opinions, gained knowledge, got to know a whole continent with all its time zones and different climates, breathed in the feeling of what it means to be in such a vast country, explored cultures previously unknown to me … To process this amount of impressions was sometimes not so easy and works best for me when I write. In this respect, the travel blog is not only a travelogue for the people who accompany me mentally and support and encourage me so wonderfully, but also my way of making the experience comprehensible for myself. Because it is still the case that I often cannot grasp what I see, experience, get to know. For all this I feel gratitude. Not only for the trip itself, but also for the support I get. I feel completely safe, because all the good wishes, the lucky charms and protective symbols I have been given, and also the photos of the people who are important to me – all this carries me through all the fears, insecurities, oopses and encounters with squirrels, bears and sea eagles. Nothing at all can happen to me. This is completely impossible.
Speaking of sea eagles. There was Annie Way at the top of the cliff in the sunshine, and I was sitting in my comfortable chair, drinking coffee and enjoying the view of the bay and the volcano out by the sea that was sending a white cloud into the air. Suddenly the sun darkened, something huge came from behind and passed through the air only two or three meters above me. It was a bold eagle, often perched in a tree less than ten meters from us. Our place was his flight path. Normally you see sea eagles only from a distance, so you don’t realize how big they actually are. But when such an animal with its two-meter wingspan is right above you … My goodness!
Homer was not only the beginning of the way back, but also the beginning of the way home. Having a place to come home to is a wonderful thing. Even though one of the sayings I put up in Annie Way is that home is not a place, it’s a feeling. But there is a place associated with the feeling for me. My son, friends, Linz, the Danube, the cafés, theaters, parks … and of course my little apartment in the city center. All this means home to me. That’s where I’m headed. And I’m totally looking forward to that. There is an advantage to living in Linz. The squirrels do not scold. There are no bears either. (Not yet.) And I know my way around there. To some extent, at least.
Because it was already August, I also booked Annie Way’s return trip from Halifax to Hamburg. She leaves on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, departing Halifax Harbor at 5:00 p.m. on the Atlantic Star and arriving in Hamburg at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 5 – at least according to the schedule. I fly on October 25 in the afternoon from Halifax to Montreal and from there to Vienna, where I will arrive on Thursday, October 26, 2023, in the morning and take the next train to Linz. Whether I’ll impose the trip in Annie Way’s upper closet to Sally and the gang again, I don’t know yet. Leopold is very heavy, but somehow he will fit in the suitcase.
In Homer, I really let myself go. Lazy days!
At the Alaska Island and Ocean Visitor Center, I learned that part of World War II had taken place on the Aleutian Islands and what impact that has had on nature and the population to this day. Scientists spend several months each year on the uninhabited islands to study the bird populations and other animals and plants and to document changes. From the Visitor Center a path with many information boards led through the marshland to the beach.
There is one place in Homer, where I went every day. At the very top of the hill range behind the town is a lookout point that offers a breathtaking view of Kachemak Bay. When I continued from there towards the campsite, there were places where two more volcanoes of the Ring of Fire could be seen out in the sea – completely covered with snow.
Not far from Homer, just a few miles to the northwest, is the town of Anchor Point. On my way to Whittier I stopped there with a view of these volcanoes. This was the westernmost point of my entire trip. From now on, we’re heading east! Of course, I also go south and finally north again, but I don’t get that far west any more.
