Pacific NW

Expeditions

Today I lived the dream I’ve been having for 3 years. Homer at last! We began with breakfast of eggs , sausage, coffee, and cinnamon toast aboard “Creola”. At noon we broke the raft up and sailed from the inlet into Cook Inlet. We immediately put up all sail in light winds. For awhile we made 6 knots with the current and sailing wing-on-wing. It was an excellent way to approach Homer. As we neared the city I let Ryan sail, and just sat back exhausted and thought about all the work to get me to this point. It was certainly worth all! Halfway point. The trip for me thus far has gone by pretty quickly. But when I think back upon it, it seems like lifetimes have passed. It feels like 50 trips, too big and varied to think of as one. And such has been the attitude toward navigation aboard “Silent Partner”. Each day we make our way north a bit more. And we meet people and fishermen who always give lots of good advice along the way. The waters have been challenging with very demanding navigation. But we have been patient, waited out bad weather, and listened to our instincts. Our “trip odometer” reads almost 3,000 miles since we left Bellingham! Homer’s marina is tucked into the very end of a 3-mile long sandspit that juts out into the bay. “Downtown” is on the mainland, but both town and spit are considered Homer. Tonight Ryan and I explored the spit and found it to be a very interesting place. It has an odd combination of fishermen, tourists, hippies, and “spit rats”. The dozens of spit rats we encountered are all living in tents on the beach for the summer. A few of them work on the spit, and many don’t do much of anything at all except watch the tide go in and out. It is almost as if Homer Spit has captured a motherlode of human flotsam, which lies scattered about the spit in weird patterns and piles. We found a trampoline frame, RVs, a giant medieval mock-castle, a spanish galleon, and many beautiful girls on the spit. All seemingly cast up from the ocean and scattered across the sand. It was excellent to be in the company of women again after being on the boat for so long. We quickly made friends with some of the spit rats on the beach, and went up to the Salty Dawg Saloon. We entered the bar around midnight and saw sort of a sunset around one in the morning. When we left the bar around 3 the sun was brightening the already light sky, and it was fully blue by the time we went to sleep.