Venturing by Ourselves on to Kachemak Bay, 1975

Seldovia, Alaska is a small fishing village across the bay, and nineteen miles west of Homer. It had originally been a native village, became the center of a major herring fishery in the early 1900s, and was the main town on Cook Inlet through the fist quarter of the twentieth century. Canneries, built on pilings, lined the waterfront with boardwalks linking them one to another. Its setting, picturesque in the classic Alaskan way, was forever changed with the Good Friday tsunami of 1964. The canneries, the boardwalk and much of the town was swept away.

Dan Wilson, 1976

Dan Wilson bought land on the slough in Seldovia in 1974, decided to fish for halibut the following summer and wondered if I might be interested in working as a crewman on his boat. He couldn’t pay anything, but would trade room and board for my labor. We’d be fishing out of Seldovia, could stay on his property, and would dine on freshly caught fish all summer. That seemed like a grand idea, so I promptly signed on as his first mate and only crew member.

Dan Wilson (left) works on his skiff, 1976

Dan acquired a twenty-two foot open dory, and a 35HP Evinrude outboard that winter. He purchased longlines, buoys, buoy lines, anchors, snood lines, and hooks, the gear necessary for fishing halibut. He borrowed a boat trailer, loaded the equipment into the boat, and the two of us headed south on a Friday evening in early May of 1975. Our plan was to take the gear over to Seldovia on Saturday, stash it on his land, and return to Anchorage by Sunday evening. School was still in session and we had to be back home to teach on Monday morning.

Dan knew an older couple living in Homer that summer. They were staying in a small travel trailer while the man worked at the new hospital being constructed. They graciously feed us on more that one occasion that season. Their trailer was a bit too small for overnight quartering, so we often stayed on the Spit, usually in my Alaskan Camper, sometimes in the bunkhouse at Lands End.

We launched our boat the next morning and ventured out onto the bay - two slightly intrepid sailors, gazing upon, and wondering if those really big waves that we were heading into were a normal phenomena. There is a deceptive illusion about boats. They appear enormous while dry docked, or on a trailer, but instantly shrink as soon as they are placed in water. Our skiff, after launching, seemed no more than a pint-sized toy boat. Once riding those big waves it shrank to the size of a wine cork.

There was no wind. We were sailing up one side of a big roller, sitting momentarily on top, and then gliding down the other side - one large, gentle roller after another - the likes-of-which we had never seen before, and never saw again. The waves must have been fifteen feet high, and their length, from crest to crest, measured forty to fifty feet. Dan was cautious, holding a moderate throttle as he drove up each hill and slid down its backside. We were not making good time. There was no wind spray, and the bow never plowed into the bottom of a trough splashing water into the boat. The ride was more like that of a kiddy roller-coaster. We judged that there must have been a big storm a long, long way off, and these giants were the remnants sweeping up Cook Inlet and turning into Kachemak Bay.

Yukon Island

What might have been a two hour crossing turned into a full morning, and we were only half way to Seldovia. We never felt in danger, but did notice a bit of stress as time was running short. We had cleared the open part of the bay, were passing the eastern end of Yukon Island, and about to enter the more protective waters of the Eldred Passage when Dan decided to stash the equipment right there on the island.

The boat edged up to shore and I jumped out pulling the bow onto the sandy beach. The tide was still coming in so there was no fear of the boat going dry in the time it took to carry the tubs of gear up the beach and into the woods. We felt somewhat like pirates hiding our treasure as we stacked the tubs and covered them with a tarp. Thirty minutes later and we were in the boat heading back to Homer. Memorial Day was coming in two weeks. We’d complete the transfer then.
GO TO: Seldovia on Memorial Day, 1975

At Bay with Lawyers, My First Exploration of Kachemak Bay

Most of my adventures on Kachemak Bay were shared with friend and fellow teacher, Dan Wilson. The first episode occurred in 1973 when a gaggle of lawyers hired a boat to carry them across the Bay to Hesketh Island. Dan finagled a ride, and we joined the legal group aboard a WWII vintage Landing Craft, one similar to the those seen in films landing Marines on hostile beaches. This one was probably designed to carry heavy equipment as there was space in the well to easily accommodate the fifty people along with their gear - enough for a weekend camp out.

Landing Ship similar to what the Lawyers hired

The craft left the boat harbor early Saturday morning, rounded the tip of the Homer Spit and set a southwest bearing. We were presented with a calm sea under a cloudless sky, and that placid experience made us more confident when we later ventured onto the bay ourselves. We were both more neophyte than old salt. Dan was from Texas, and I grew up in Indiana. The only thing the two states have in common with the ocean is flatness. Once you’ve experienced days of calm seas, when the boat drifts aimlessly with a gentle roll, can you appreciate a revisit to the flatlands, and feel the same rolling sensation induced by the prairie visage.

Sixty Foot Rock

The boat crossed the open water and eased into the Eldred Passage, a sheltered channel between the southern shore and the island chain made up of Sixty Foot Rock, Cohen, Yukon, and Hesketh islands. We sailed past them and turned into the western shore of Hesketh. After ten miles and sixty minutes the craft pulled onto its beach. The bow gate dropped and the legal team disembarked, lugging packs and ice coolers up the graveled beach and into the woods. Dan and I chose a less populated site to make camp.


Elephant Rock, Between Yukon and Hesketh Islands

We spent two nights on the island. I remember only a few events during the outing. That first night the lawyers had a bond fire to which they invited Dan and me. I don’t recall how Dan happened to find out about the excursion, but we felt a bit like intruders. The only person I recognized was the wife of one of the lawyers. She had done her student teaching at West High. The rest were strangers. So, here we were, a couple of nerdy biology teachers, out numbered twenty to one, and surrounded by a gang of litigating lawyers who probably knew little more about the life around them than we did about the law. Dan and I didn’t wish to bore them by expounding on local fauna and flora, and we were unfamiliar with the vocabulary of their arcane language so we kept a respectful silence while sipping the wine they offered.

A typical Scene on Kachemak Bay

There was a low tide, a clam tide, the next day and many of us wandered onto the exposed sea floor. I had taken my little Kodak along, was snapping a number of pictures, but set it down on a rock, not thinking to retrieve the camera until after fifteen feet of water covered it. I found it sitting on the same rock at the next low tide, decided it was ruined and figured the to invest in a new one. There are no photos to record the Hesketh adventure, and several subsequent outings, as I didn’t get around to replacing it for a couple years.


I don’t know the size of Hesketh Island, but would guess its foot print covers over a hundred acres. Members soon diffused over the islands expanse exploring coves and beaches. Until that time, our presence on the island was probably unknown, but the owner was in residence, and soon showed up in the attorney’s camp. I didn’t hear all the specifics, but it seems the lawyers had neglected to seek permission to camp on private property. Maybe they had relied on the boat’s skipper to place them on a nice camping spot and he had pulled a fast one.


The owner might have requested a camping fee, but graciously declined that alternative. He could have ordered us off the island, but swimming was our only option. He may have had an impulse to sue, but that probably did not seem prudent as he was standing in a nest of lawyers. I understand he let them know he did not much appreciate the invasion of his privacy, and made a point of not inviting them back.
THE END