Day 57 - Monday, May 27 - Memorial Day - Milepost 5542 - Birdcount 252 - Kachemak Bay and Lambert Lake, Homer, Alaska

(BF's Journal). If I were to have a summer home in Alaska I think I’d choose the hillsides along Kachemak Bay east of Homer. This morning when I park beside one home along East End Road, my view spreads across 20 miles of the calm Kachemak Bay with Homer Spit jutting 3.5 miles into the bay at my right and Grewingk Glacier dumping into the bay at my left. A few fishing boats dot the bay and a big Panama licensed ship is anchored in wait of loading its cargo of wood chips bound for the Far East. Five miles across the bay I can see spruce lined shores growing to green foothills which leap into snow covered peaks. Surrounding me are lush green lawns sprinkled with buttery yellow dandelions and shaded with white barked aspen and deep green spruce. Behind me rises a sharp 1000 ft embankment painted green with spring shrubs and grass. Today the golden sun adds a bright glow and radiant warmth tempered by a cool sea breeze.

Adjacent to Homer municipal airport I stop at Lambert Lake, a known nesting ground for Arctic Terns and Mew Gulls. Lambert Lake is mostly a wet marsh, ideal for hiding nests. I still haven’t found a telephoto lens that I like, so I continue to experiment with using my spotting scope as a giant lens. This time the lighting is good enough to focus on the Mew Gull through the camera and spotting scope combination. This gives me an incredible 1750 mm photo.

(SF's Journal).  While Bert is birding this morning, I check the tide tables and determine high tide to be around 10:30 am. At 9:30 I gather my rod and walk with purposeful steps toward the bay looking ever so much like the fisherman I am. The water is calm, the sky blue as I cast off the shore. Two-hundred twenty-six casts later, a few rock nibbles, weed bass and another starfish, I call it quits.  The fish apparently do not hear my sonic lure.  The view outside R TENT is again different with grey not green water rimmed in hazy blacks, greys and whites, not chocolate.  Bert comes back from birding and we do a little sightseeing in the car, remove our bikes and drive them the 1.5 miles to the fishing hole where I try my luck or no luck as it turns out.  King Salmon are jumping out of the water all around my sonic lure and it is neat to see them break water. Two men of the dozens fishing do catch big salmon in the hour that I try, but no fish take my bait.  It is crock pot beef for our supper tonight. We retrieve our bikes, Bert carrying my rod and reel, me carrying the backpack with the knife, a plastic bag and the fishing license all brought in anticipation of catching "the big one".  We petal back and notice the hundreds of campers, vans, tents, and motor homes have vacated and we again only have to share the beach with three or four others.  With the end of Memorial Day, it is noticeably quieter and the only sounds are the waves pounding the shore and gusts of wind breezing past R TENT with an occasional call of a gull as it makes its way west.

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