To Homer and Ismailof Island, Kachemak Bay

We continue down the Kenai Peninsula to Homer Spit where we are departing on the Danny J boat over to Ismailof Island.

Most of the passengers are going to the restaurant, Sawtry’s, for dinner, then back on the boat, but we have booked 3 nights in the Lighthouse overlooking the bay.

The journey over is uneventful, but we learn that Halibut Cove was a thriving fishing port in the 1920s where the herring were abundant in the lagoon which only flooded in high tides. The herring would spawn there providing huge catches for the fisherman. However, they caught more than they could sell or preserve, and threw the dead carcasses back into the lagoon. This created disease in the water, and the herrings all died and did not return to spawn, thus the fishing industry was wiped out.

Remants of the herring industry remain, but the island is now really only inhabited by people, mostly in the summer months - only 20 people remained last winter.

The bay is rich in marine life - seals, otters, whales and many birds.

On the second day we take a water taxi over to the mainland to do the Grewingk Glacier trail. The boat drops us off at the beach, and we take the 5 mile hike to the glacier which is phenomenal.

The trail starts in pine and deciduous woodland, very earthy underfoot with lots of tree roots to pick our way over. After a mile or so it changes to a more desert like feel, stony and gravelly underfoot, sparse trees and lots of low level shrubs and alpine plants and flowers. The trail becomes very open and rocky.

We suddenly come out onto a curved grey beach, and the glacier is visible, coming down to a lagoon filled with huge ice sculptures which are slowly dripping and melting in the sunshine. There was a huge tsunami here in 1967 which created a 500ft wave which wiped out a whole area at the bottom of the glacier - hence the change in the trail as we walked on the tsunami area.

After an hour at the lagoon watching the ice in the lake, it is time to return to our collection point which is at the end of another trail, the Saddle Back. We walk at a good pace for an hour until the trail starts to descend steeply to the bay, at times very slippery in the dirt and tree roots. We finally come out at a rocky cove where there are the remnants of an old saltery, lots of posts sticking out of the sand. Our water taxi arrives shortly after and whisks us back to Ismailof Island where we have a cup of tea in the cafe, and then return to the Lighthouse to change for dinner.

Dinner in the Sawtry is good fun, thankfully we are sitting inside as there is a chill wind in the air. We eat copious amounts of fish and make a small dent into the enormous portion of bread pudding, then wend our way back for our last night, sleeping soundly even without curtains!