Homer is a heavily oriented tourism community located at the very end of the Kainai Peninsula. We had the good fortune to stay in a lodge unit called Land’s End. It truly was at the end of the land on the peninsula on what is known as the Spit.

There is the town of Homer itself and then, there is a 4.5-mile-long collection of sand, gravel, and other buildable material, called the “Spit” that leads out to the very end, the area where most of the fishing charters depart. There is both a deep-water and a shallow water harbor. The prime tourism draw is fishing, although there are some sightseeing tours as well. It is 19 feel above sea level and only about 1/3 mile wide at it’s widest point.

We had a day to relax and used it to wander around Homer, where we saw some unusual things. I enjoyed the views along the beach and seashore.

For instance, I discovered a couple moose had trapped themselves in an auto body shop. I grabbed a couple of shots to prove I saw them there. I wanted to stick around to see how they got out but I had other things to do.

Homer’s attention to tourism detail was somewhat mixed, but the Spit was very definitely tourist-oriented. As most of you know, that topic intrigues me, so I spent quite a bit of time photo documenting the novel things that they had done.

The next day, at a very early hour, we met our fishing charter. We were headed out for some halibut. Halibut is a flaky white saltwater fish that is particularly tasty and not very fishy flavored. I became enamored with it when I visited Sitka, Alaska a decade or more ago, and I was anxious to see if I could grab some this time for my freezer. Fishing is the passion that drove Doug and Cheryl to make the 16,000-mile journey to this area, with me in tow for part of it. Halibut is an expensive fish to buy in the supermarket and is not exactly cheap to go fishing for, but it is well worth it in the end.

The day was cloudy and rainy, and the winds were fairly high. Because of that, we could not get to the deeper areas where the bigger fish are usually found. Instead, we cast our lines in the shallower waters of 65 to 200 feet. Halibut is a bottom grazing fish, so the line goes down a long way.

There is a one fish limit of anything over 37 inches and there is a one fish limit of something smaller than 31 inches. We were all anxious to catch our two fish. Along the way, we saw a partial rainbow and dealt with some bad weather, but for the most part, we stayed dry. And until I posed for the picture, I stayed relatively non-fishy.

I was the first person to catch a fish thanks to the guide, who helped me get the line in the water. After that, it didn’t take me long to bring something up. My wrist was giving out as I worked to drag up a 35-pound fish from a 65-foot depth. The question was, did I want to keep it? It wasn’t the biggest fish ever caught, but I was happy with it, so I said yes. 

Then I attempted to catch my little one. Instead, I caught a much bigger fish from 200 feet down. It took three of us several turns to drag it up, but we didn’t know just how big it was until we got it to the edge of the boat, at which point we had to release it. I was sad. It had been a lot of work to get that fish up there. However, I was determined to try again. The boat moved around several times, searching for the right spot, and I caught another fish in about 80 feet of water. Again, it was too big. Then, in about 65 feet of water, I finally caught a 30-inch one. I kept it. 

All in all, the eight of us on the tour all caught our two-fish limit, making it a very successful day on the water. It might not have been as much fish as Doug and Cheryl were hoping to get, but for me it was an incredible experience, and I was happy with the catch that I made.

The caught fish are filleted on the ship and put into coolers. Each fish is marked with the owner’s name and a hash, so we each got the fish we caught. We were met at the dock by employees of a packing company who took the fillets and cut them up into one-pound packages; then flash froze them and shipped them overnight air to the address of each person’s choosing. Interestingly, Doug and Cheryl caught twice as much fish as I did, but their shipping cost to a remote portion of Maine was only one and a half times the amount of my shipping charges to Nebraska. I don’t understand that, but it’s okay. I have fish for a few months. It lasts up to three years in the freezer. I suspect mine won’t last that long.

We had dinner one night at the Land’s End restaurant. My meal was excellent. I had scallops wrapped and cooked with bacon, and glazed with birch syrup. This syrup is apparently a Canadian and Alaskan substitute for maple syrup. The scallops were outstanding — fresh, well-cooked, and eaten in a beautiful venue looking out at the ocean.