ALASKA — Kayaks and Clams

Summer 2007

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Dan Armitage

I actually ducked at the sound, sinking low in the cockpit, my PFD thrust up to cheek level as I waited for the impact of what sounded like a cross between a stunt kite on steroids and a comet to crash into the water nearby.

Instead, a jet-black eagle streaked into my peripheral view, swooped low at the water and with the sound of a wildly luffing sail, rose again with a small, silver fish in its talons to a lofty perch atop a massive Sitka spruce.

I recalled recent advice from my host, Nelda Osgood: “You can usually hear the wildlife around here before you actually see it. So it pays to paddle quietly and keep your ears AND your eyes open.” From the tap-tap-tapping of a sea otter at­tempting to open a clam while doing the backstroke, to the wet exhalation of a breaching orca, the wild menagerie found in the woods and waters of Kachemak Bay, Alaska can be both seen and heard.

After a week of exploring the 49th state via planes, trains and automobiles, I was in awe of and feeling a bit intimidated by Alaska’s sheer size. But when I boarded a kayak and took a short paddle onto the waters of Tutka Bay on the southwest coast of the Kenai Peninsula, a few strokes nudged me out of the small, rocky bay and my travel funk, giving me a view of distant alpine glaciers and my first close encounter with our nation’s noble symbol.

As often happens when I settle into a cockpit, my low-to-the-water vantage point and slow, manual-powered pace put every­thing back into perspective and I began to appreciate sights, sounds and smells both near and far.

KAYAK HAVEN
It seems this vantage point is a popular one among both residents and visitors to the Kenai Peninsula. After arriving in Homer and taking the five-minute cab drive to the narrow peninsula known as “The Spit,” the first thing I noticed was the sheer quantity of kayaks. Everywhere I looked the colorful craft were lashed to cars, trucks and campers, secured on the decks and cabin tops of watercraft, stacked on the municipal boat docks, and shelved adjacent to shops. The spit, a 5-mile-long sand and gravel geologic feature, the remains of a glacial moraine, averages a mere 1⁄4 mile wide and is the hub of the waterfront activity in the busy commercial fishing community.

After settling into my room at Land’s End Resort, a popular accommodation on the bitter end of the spit, I glanced out the window to catch a guy stroking down the surf-line in a well-worn kayak making a beeline for a distant stretch of sand dotted with colorful tents. Looking the other way, I watched as a boat cleared the point and headed due north, a brace of slender tandem kayaks lashed to the deck. I wanted to be among the neoprene-clad passengers who gathered on the foredeck, eagerly pointing ahead and anticipating the paddling to come. Just a few miles across Kachemak Bay are the kayaking grounds where people from all over the world come to explore places like China Poot Bay, Halibut Cove, Sadie Cove and Seldovia Bay on the coast of the Kenai.

SPIT STROLLING
As my own adventure on the “Far Side” wouldn’t begin until the following day, I used every hour of summer sunlight, which is saying a lot at that latitude, to walk around town. I strolled down the northeast side of Homer Spit Road to take in the Homer Boat Harbor, quaff a refreshing Anchor Steam Ale at the Salty Dawg, and ended up at one of the most popular places on the spit, the aptly named “Fishing Hole.” A small, man-made inlet fed by the considerable Cook Inlet tide, the Fishing Hole is a magnet for anglers and several species of salmon, which are re­leased there by the thousands as juvenile smolts, and return as adults at regular intervals throughout the season. I met some campers who were just setting up at the Homer Spit Campground. Turned out they were “Spit Rats,” which is what they call the regulars at the beachfront, some working part-time on the commercial fish boats docked across the road or in the shops, galleries and eateries that line both sides of Homer Spit Road.

The next morning I hiked down to Mako’s (rhymes with “tacos”) Water Taxi and boarded the very boat I had envied the day before and rode it to my ultimate destination: Tutka Bay Wilderness Lodge. The nine-mile crossing of Kachemak Bay went fast, thanks to the scenery and Capt Mako’s local knowledge, which he shares with anyone smart enough to join him in the pilothouse during the half-hour boat ride.

TUTKA BAY BY LAND AND WATER
Mako deftly brought the boat along­side the dock, where I was greeted by owners Jon and Nelda Osgood and shown to my room, inside a lovely two story A-frame with magnificent views of the bay and surrounding mountains.

I spent four days at Tutka Bay, joined by wildlife photographer Steve Bly who was also on assignment and “working” as hard as I was. We took advantage of every activity we had time for, from hiking the trails leading from the lodge, to hooking monster halibut on the Winter King—the cleanest, neatest, best-equipped charter fishing boat I’ve ever stepped aboard, and I’ve boarded more than a few. Capt. Rex Murphy picked us up and dropped us off right at the lodge’s dock, and in between we battled more halibut than we cared to keep, although some of the large specimens made it back to the lodge—and eventually Ohio—under ice.

My most memorable day at Tutka Bay, however, was spent a little lower to the water and under my own power. I joined resident kayak instructor, tour leader and naturalist Theresa Paganini on a day trip that included an activity that I’ve wanted to experience since I was a child—digging for clams.

CLAMMING SAFARI
We had to time the clamming safari just right to arrive at the beach at low tide. Luckily, good lows were occurring during the mornings of my stay, and it was “game on.” The equipment for taking the hard-shelled littleneck and butter clams we were after couldn’t have been simpler: a clam rake and a bucket. The technique turned out to be equally easy: using the rake you dig a shallow trench in the gravel just above and perpendicular to the waterline. Working your way up and down the watery, muddy cleft, which may extend 10 yards or so up the beach, you rake and rerake the rocks, digging down a foot or so at most, looking for the rounded, lighter colored shells of the clams. The bi-valves may be as small as a nickel or as large as your palm, but only those at least an inch in diameter are legal to keep and the best are the diameter of a golf ball and nearly as fat.

It took us less than an hour to harvest several dozen each, after which we carefully refilled the trenches and left the beach looking like it did when we arrived—albeit minus some clams.

The balance of the day was spent pad­dling through the bay, accompanied by several shy sea otters and overseen by a pair of eagles, admiring the flora and the fauna ashore and in the surrounding waters that make the Kenai such a fascinating place to explore by water. We tarried a bit over lunch, using rock formations as free-form seating, as we stretched and relaxed muscles, and Theresa pointed out the steam coming off one of three semi-active volcanoes that loomed over the horizon before us.

With the afternoon breeze building and in our faces for much of the return trip, the paddle back to the lodge forced me to dig deep both physically and figuratively when crossing Tutka Bay. A hot tub never felt so good as the one I sub­merged myself in within ten minutes of our arrival back at the lodge.

That evening we ate the steamed clams over pasta spiced with fresh herbs and drenched in a wine sauce. We were entertained by an eagle—perhaps the same one that had startled me earlier on the water—as it flew back and forth from its perch atop a nearby spruce.
Late that night, after the wind had died, I walked the beach. Using my ears, as Nelda had instructed, I stopped before turning back to my room. Sure enough, I heard the gusty “pooosh...” that signaled the exhalation of a fellow mammal—a porpoise or a whale—not too distant, out on the water where I still yearned to be.

For More Information
Alaska Travel Industry Association: 800-862-5275; travelalaska.com
Homer Visitors Center: 907-235-7740; homeralaska.org
Land’s End Resort: 800-478-0400; lands-end-resort.com
Tutka Bay Wilderness Lodge: 800-606-3909; tutkabaylodge.com
Mako’s Water Taxi and Kayak Rental: 907-235-9055; makoswatertaxi.com
Winter King Charter Fishing: 907-235-9113; winterking.com
ERA Airlines; 800-866-8394: flyera.com
Grant Aviation: 888-flygrant; flygrant.com
Alaska Kayak School and Rentals: 907-235-2090 Alaskakayakschool.com
True North Kayak Adventures: 907-235-0708; truenorthkayak.com
The Kachemak Bay Kayak Festival (May 24-June 3): kachemakkayakfestival.com