We headed to Seward from Homer both on the Kenai Peninsula. The scenery along the way is fantastic.

We took a drive to the Kenai Fjords National Park. Behind us is Exit Glacier, named because it was the route most trappers took to leave the ice field, Harding Field.

I was amazed at how blue the ice is. I learned that glacial ice is always blue, due to lack of oxygen deep inside the glacier. This glacier has receded 1,000 feet in the last 10 years. Yikes, that is scary! They always recede some in the summer and grow again in the winter but overall melting is not good.

We also learned that eons ago, the glaciers all extended 60 miles into the bay and carved the bay as they receded. This is also how the Great Lakes were formed.

We spent some of our first afternoon at the Seward Brewing Company.

Our second stop was the Yukon Bar.

We drove around Seward and there was a passenger ship in the harbor. I took a few pictures of it, front and back.

We stopped at Thorn’s Lounge for a local brew. The walls inside are lined with neat bottles. Most of these are Jim Beam bottles. They are inside custom made display cases, arranged in categories such as animals, states, etc.

We prepared for our last splurge of this big Alaska trip, halibut fishing.

The scenery was beautiful as we drove for almost 3 hours, to begin fishing. We saw a couple of whales but they were too quick to get any pictures.

We had so much fun fishing. This is not a good year for halibut but Captain Tom and Helper Ron worked hard to find spots to catch them and to give pointers on how to reel them in.

I had caught the second halibut on the trip and also maxed out first. You are allowed one halibut 28″ or less and the second can be any size. We all caught 2 that were each about 28″. Tom told us his passengers had been getting 150 pound halibut in these same locations a few days earlier. We were somewhat disappointed but not really. They were really hard to reel in and we had a gorgeous weather day, so not so bad.

Dave caught the most fish and biggest variety. He caught a shark dogfish, “baby” Gobi and 4 Rock fish, before maxing out on halibut. Once you max out, you have to stop fishing so I had stopped early. Dave caught all of these other fish before catching his halibut.

Rebecca took us out for supper after a long day of fishing. We went back to Thorn’s and shared a Bucket of Butt’s, halibut with fries.