Friday, July 1

This is our ferry the Aurora.

It was rainy and overcast for the entire trip across the Prince William Sound.

These were some of the seats on board. Later we found more seats like these in the front of the ferry.

When we got near the Columbia Glacier we encountered many boat sized chunks of blue ice floating all around us.

Sea lions were stacked on top of one another on many of the beaches.

This was our whale sighting. A great picture for me. Last time I was in Alaska, I only got the vapor from the blow hole.

Here we are entering the Whittier Harbor.

The Aloha B & B is situated high on the hillside above Homer. We have a great view of the Homer Spit. (a spit is a gravel bar the extends out into the water)

The living area at the Aloha, complete with a tv and Dish network!

The Salty Dawg Saloon at the end of the spit.

Rolled out early this morning so we could be at the Ferry terminal by 7 a.m. for our 8 o'clock ferry ride from Valdez to Whittier. We pulled on right after a double decker tour bus. We waited a minute or two thinking the ferry might sink but it was fine so we pulled on as well. The entire ride was about 5 hours. The upper deck was completely closed in with comfortable seating, some seats would recline and a cafeteria in the back with a pretty good menu to chose from. We did see otters, sea lions, porpoises, and a whale. The whale was pretty far off so our picture was not very clear. When we disembarked we still had another 5 hour drive to get to Homer. We arrived at our bed and breakfast and it is beautiful. It is called the Aloha B & B and the owner is from Hawaii. From our window we can look down to the city of Homer and the Spit. For supper we drove down onto the Homer Spit to the Salty Dawg Saloon. What an experience! There were dollar bills tacked to every beam and the complete ceiling was covered. After we determined that this was only a saloon and did not serve food, we went next door to the Happy Face restaurant to eat. Then it was back up to our home on the mountain side to get rested up for our Bear Viewing trip tomorrow.