Labor Day Weekend 2020, Homer, AK – Homer is not what we expect. Alaskans tell us, uniformly, that Homer is the Port Townsend (where Jennifer has a house) of Alaska. We feel blind, because we don’t see it.
The strip, which is where the marina is, is closing down for the season. Because of COID many of the businesses never bothered to open. We visit a big restaurant with a view of the harbor, eat forgettable burgers with an equally forgettable woman waiting on us – but then I guess we were equally forgettable because she certainly forgot us.
The spit is home to a 900-boat marina, various commercial boating support businesses, and locally-famous local tourist spots. The Salty Dawg bar is the best known. It does look like it was Alaska-built in the early twentieth century: Crowded, low ceiling, dark in the middle of the day. We ran. Although there are very few cases in this part of the world and no current cases in Homer, one diseased tourist and we’re all infected. Aside from it not being the place for us, we didn’t want to be part of a super-spreader locale.
Fin’s pizza was recommended, but I suppose my tastes are too narrow coming from New York.
However, Carmen’s Gelato is probably the best I have ever had, period. Jennifer and I spent some time hanging out with Carmen and his girlfriend, Chelsea. We talked about what makes gelato Gelato: low-fat milk instead of cream, lots of milk solids in the form of non-fat powdered milk†† and being served at a higher temperature than ice cream. This yields a much higher freezing point than ice cream, which is 0F. Carmen keeps his cold table at 12ºF. Carmen says the higher temperature means that you can taste flavors better. While undoubtedly true, Carmen’s gelato is very full of ingredients.
The other you-gotta-go places must demonstrate our provincial tastes because we’re not sure why we went to any of them.
Over the time we were on the strip, more than a week, we got to know a few people, especially Don and Sherry who own the brewery that abuts the strip. He’s a sailor who wants to sail to Hawaii: 181º due south and he’s there. We got to know them both. Why they own a brewery: basically, once you retire with engineering experience, project management experience, and management experience, what else are you going to do? Don tells me. At the brewery, we got to meet more of the locals.
In the brewery’s outdoor garden one afternoon, seven women, dressed as Jennifer and I think of Mennonites, came in. We were sitting around the fire pit and asked them to join us. I suppose, except for the language and the attire, they were like the ladies that my maternal grandmother hung out with. They talked a lot, not quietly, laughed, even more, drank a good amount; well, I guess that depends on what you think a good amount is, to some, it was more than a good amount — how about a healthy amount? — and talked to Jennifer and me.
They are what are called Old Russians. The youngest was 20 and newly married, the oldest not quite forty. It was ladies’ afternoon out, with a designated driver. A pub crawl by any other name. This was their third stop.
Their husbands are fishermen, they have various numbers of children. They are religious and all have names, as do their husbands, from the Russian version of the bible.
The twenty-year-old woman sat next to me. As the conversation raged, I asked her if she would have gone out with this group of women before she was married a year ago. Her answer was clear, ‘‘Hell no!’’
Homer spit is indeed four miles from town, but the town is a new American town… there is no actual town that we have found. Built in the time of the automobile, no two things are walkable from each other, it seems.
We saw the town through Alison and Dave, who we met on the dock in Seldovia. They had just come up to pick up a boat they had built in Homer: A Bayweld aluminum 30-footer with twin 350-horsepower Suzukis. It is the same boat we see everywhere in Alaska working as tour boats, charter fishing boats, and water taxis. Yep, a commercial boat.
They came up from Vancouver BC to spend some time enjoying and shaking down their new boat. They also rented a car, which they lent us to go shopping.
In time. Anja and Thomas showed up in Robusta. They had gone to Halibut Cove, docked at the public dock, and been adopted by the village chief, who invited them to spend the winter there. The antithesis of what we were told would happen.
Caro Babbo comes out of the water on the 18th, nine days from today. We’re going to rent a car and play tourist.
There is some old comedy routine that is punctuated by the phrase, you can’t get there from here. Here in Homer, it feels that way. Anchorage is five hours by car from here. By the way, Homer is the first town on this trip Jennifer and I have sailed to that is on the road network. Homer is only the fourth in four years we’ve sailed in Alaska.
There is no mass transit or flights that can take you there from here, nor ferry. The buses only run in the height of the summer and the airline went bust. We’ve met a very nice woman, named Galadriel, who is going to Kenai to visit a new puppy. She’ll drop us off at the airport. From there, we’ll fly to Anchorage for $105 each… Anchorage to Seattle is $147. In Anchorage, we’ll pick up a rental car for $18/day (plus 60% tax) and keep it until we drive back to the Anchorage airport.
This whole land-based adventure starts Friday. The big news is that we will sleep ashore for the first time since the end of February!
Jennifer can’t wait to take her time taking a shower.
Then a drive to Denali, then perhaps Fairbanks, and eventually back here. Then out of the water, some days sleeping aboard on the hard, then a flight to SEATAC and a drive to Port Townsend.
On Saturday, the 19th of September, in the afternoon, an hour before high tide in low winds and calm seas, Jennifer drove Caro Babbo into the slings at Northern Enterprises in seven feet of water. Yes, the bottom here is many feet above sea level at low tide.
* When we can’t use the Dickinson and there is enough electrical power, we use the Webasto forced air diesel heater. While the Dickinson runs non-stop at one setting, full blast, the Webasto is controlled by a household thermostat: very luxuriant but very loud.
†I’ll write about where we got the rental car, and where we drove it, across the winter.
††I expect cheap gelato uses whey, the way powdered hot cocoa does, instead of powdered milk — Read labels, or maybe it’s better you don’t.
