Thursday, August 2: Well, an interesting day, and, in the end, a bit disappointing. I called the doctor and was fortunate enuogh to get an appointment for Jerry with Dr Michael Krachman in Manahawkin for 2:45 the day after we get back.
Decent buffet breakfast at the BW and the van arrived for our pickup right on time. Had a moment of panic when I couldn’t find my antibiotic pills, but they turned up at the hotel in Kodiak.
When we got to the float plane dock it started to rain. We loaded up the Beaver and took off. The pilot, Jay, tried several routes, but everything was fogged in. We returned to Kodiak, where Jay decided that we four passengers should take the van and he would decide by 5 or 5:30 if we should try again.
Cubs
note the white band across the shoulders
Common Loons
When we attempted to return to the lodge for lunch, we found the bridge was closed. Whenever a bear is within 50 yards of humanity, all movement ceases. We were able to spend close to two hours before the bridge reopened, and got some great views of bears and bear behavior. Especially a mother with her two cubs.
After lunch, Dee and I walked to the Cultural Center, where we viewed a prehistoric house built mostly underground. We went to the Trading Post and then crossed the bridge where we picked up our van to take us to the float plane site.
I sat in the co-pilot's seat for the ride home. Excellent dinner and an early retirement.
Monday, July 30: Up early for another trip to Brooks. We were among the first so had no wait at the Falls. There was a bear at the top, so I concentrated on him and got lots of good pictures. Our guide was able to get us a plane back right after lunch so Jerry could go fishing in the afternoon. He had a great time, aside from falling in the drink and getting soaked. Caught some beautiful rainbow trout. Dinner was steak, halibut and shrimp
Sitka Deer
Thursday, July 26: Left Abner in Sue Senior's capable hands about 3 and drove to the Wyndham Gardens where we will leave the car while we're away. We had the usual excellent meal at the Spanish Tavern and got a good night's sleep.
Friday, July 27: Two long but mostly uneventful flights, made much better by the fact that we flew first class. On the transfer between the Seattle and Anchorage flights, Jerry made a misstep exiting the escalator and fell hard on both knees. We were able to ice them in the Alaska Air Club. Got a cab to the Copper Whale Inn and went next door to Simon and Seafort's for dinner. I wasn't hungry, but Jerry had a good cioppino with salmon.
Saturday, July 28: Excellent day. Taxied from the Copper Whale, after a very good breakfast, to the Katmailand air transport site, where we boarded a plane with six others for the hour and a half flight to Kulik Lodge.
Ed Ward is the head honcho and he helped us get organized. Sidney, Cathy's granddaughter from Cape Coral, will be our guide, but not tonight, as they somehow decided not to do evening trips. We had a nice dinner, cooked by Natasha--grilled chicken with balsamic glaze, brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze, spaghetti with oil and garlic, and cucumber and onion salad. We skipped dessert, which looked delicious.
Then we had a campfire, followed by a tour by Ed of the infrastructure of the camp. There was a cute momma fox which seemed to be very tame and we saw three deer and then two bears far away across the lake. My big camera had somehow been left on, so the battery is now charging and the spare is in place.
Saturday, August 4: Up for a good breakfast of a veggie omelet and then we sailed over to The Thumb, where we disembarked and walked for about a mile (some of us more nimbly than others). We saw a bear on the way. He was on the way to the Lake. We settled on the heights and observed bears for about an hour, then went a bit lower and watched a mother and two cubs for two hours. She repeatedly went back and forth in front of us, catching salmon and teaching her cubs to fish. We saw deer, and a fox came within feet of us. We saw a little ermine swim across the stream (we have seen three of the six mammals native to Kodiak Island: the brown bear, the red fox, and this ermine. We have not seen the land otter, the tundra vole or the brown bat--the otter would be nice, but I don't mind missing the other two). It was a really special experience. This bear is Cinnamon.
Then the alpha female, Broken Ear, 26 years old, appeared with her two cubs, and we watched them for several more hours from a distance of about twenty feet.
The Snorkel Method
Then onto the Riffles Viewing Platform and eventually the Brooks Falls site. Gorgeous views of bear behaving bearishly.
American Bald Eagle
American Magpie
White-crowned Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow; Glaucous Gull; Herring Gull
Happy hour was Mexican Seafood Spread, and dinner was huge. I think they may not pay the help much, but they surely feed them well. Early to bed for a 5:30 wake up call for our trip to Brooks Falls tomorrow.
Sunday, July 29: Awakened at six for a good breakfast (omelets to order, and just about anything else you can imagine). Took off in a float plane over gorgeous country. Dropped off four fishermen and their guide on the American River, then on to Brooks where we had compulsory Bear Training then crossed the bridge and walked on to the first viewing platform. We had to leave the trail when a mother bear and three cubs ambled down toward us. Didn't get good photos as the trees we were hiding behind blocked our view.
It was fascinating to watch their perseverance as they tried and tried before finally connecting.
Camp Island & the Kodiak Brown Bear Center
Tuesday, July 31: I finally gave in and had a blueberry pancake for breakfast. Delicious! We started out in a boat to
look for wildlife, but it began to rain hard, so they brought me back and Jerry and the guide, Patty Moe, went to look for fish. I tried to work, but the WiFi is pretty bad. I rested and read and Jerry came home about 10:30. He caught a few, but I don't think it was as good a day as yesterday.
We had an early lunch and a flight back to Anchorage. Did laundry at the Copper Whale and then it became obvious that Jerry was in acute pain. He had apparently not had a bowel movement since we left Newark and was in deep distress. We tried several methods but about 5:30 called a cab for the ER at Providence Hospital. We arrived at 6:20, and eventually got a bed in the hall and then a room. We had a very good nurse (whose aunt had a place in Manahawkin and whose parents live in Venice, FL). The doctor Dr. Hallock, came in and ordered X-Ray which showed significant blockage, so they did a super-enema and then a CT scan. This showed a stricture in the bowel leading to a partial closure. The doctor talked to us for a long time and emphasized the significance of this development and how important it is that we get him to a gastroenterologist as soon as possible. I emailed Bill Aarons and he called and recommended a physician with whom to schedule a colonoscopy as soon as we get home. In the meantime, Jerry is double dosing with MiraLAX. Before we left (at 12:45 am), I asked the doctor to look at my spider bite, acquired at Brooks Falls. He diagnosed cellulitis and prescribed an antibiotic. The good news is that the pain from the bite has diminished the pain of my foot and knee.
We got back to the Copper Whale about 1 am and went immediately to bed.
Wednesday, Aug. 1: It was raining when we got up. Cleaned up a bit and had breakfast. Checked out just before eleven and went to Simon & Seafort's for lunch. At 12:30, Kim, the taxi driver, picked us up. We stopped at Walgreens and got our prescriptions filled. We got to the airport and had about an hour wait for our flight to Kodiak. The Best Western van picked us up, we checked in and walked to dinner at Kodiak Hana, formerly the Powerhouse. The sushi was good, the halibut cheeks great. Walked home and went to bed. Tomorrow we head to Kodiak Brown Bear Center after I call the doctor for Jerry.
Always with the last word.
Camp is the white windmills you can see on the far shore.
I was the fly in the ointment. My knee was so sore, I felt completely unbalanced as we walked to and fro. Sidney and Crystal guided us, and Crystal walked behind me and really helped me make the journey. After lunch, the group went back to watch some more, but I stayed in camp and watched wildlife from there.
Gail South
Here are two lucky anglers (one is a guide) who will have a story to tell for a long time.
There was clearly a hierarchy among the bears. We didn’t see any serous fights, but we did experience confrontations. One key to observe is that they don’t look directly into each other’s eyes.
Success
Common Goldeneye
We went to the Baranov museum, the oldest house in Alaska and the NF&W museum, where we saw an awesome skeleton of a whale. The whale had been found dead on the shore; they buried it for four years, then painstakingly cleaned and reassembled it. Cool.
Kim picked us up and we went to the hospital to pick up Jerry's X-rays and CT scans. Came back, had a Bloody Mary at Sullivan's Steakhouse and went to the show about the Northern Lights.
The hotel moved us to a much nicer room. Had a good dinner at Glacier Brewhouse then packed up.
Tuesday, August 7: In the morning, Kim picked us up. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, arrived in Seattle early and spent several hours in the Alaska Lounge. Arrived in Newark about midnight, shuttled to the Wyndham and fell into bed about 3:30 am. Home without incident Wednesday. Susan and Abner were happy to see us. They had lots of adventures.
Here are some anglers having an experience they will relish much more in the re-telling.
Beautiful initial flight, but then we flew through a fog bank for a half hour before landing at a gorgeous valley. It was the first time I flew with a pilot wearing waders. The landing strip is shown below. We saw a grizzly bear on our ride from the landing strip to the camp.
Our cabin is very nice and we settled in after a good buffet lunch. Jerry went fishing and had a great time, catching five rainbow trout. I went for a walk, but it was very windy and I only got some shots of bumblebees.
Then we drove to Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park, an old WWII military defensive site. We walked around in the rain and saw a bald eagle on one of the rocks in the harbor.
We had called the Shelikof Lodge and reserved a room, so when the call came that our flight was cancelled, at least we had a clean place to stay (even though we had to pay for it). A Marine named John took over driving the van and took Dirk and Elke to their B&B, then took us to our motel. He waited while we checked in and then drove us to Henry's, where we had a good dinner. Jerry had Alaskan bouillabaisse and I had a delicious smoked salmon plate. It turned out that our pilot and his wife were also (having a night out) there and said they would pick us up at 8:30 tomorrow.
Friday, August 3: Very disappointing day. We spent the whole day at the motel waiting for updates to our flight plans. When we finally had to vacate the room about 11:30, we repaired to the lobby, which was filled with others stuck in Kodiak because no planes were flying. Very boring, but the weather was horrendous--pouring rain and high winds. Reports from Karluk said there were 3-4 foot waves on the lake, so no plane could land ("worst I've seen in thirty years--you should have been here last week"}. We were finally told to be ready at 4 for a pickup. The van came, with Dirk and Elke, who had had an equally miserable day at their B&B. We got to the air take off place, but no Jay appeared. He finally got there about 5:30 and we took off at 6.
The flight was awe-inspiring and we landed safely at the beautiful Kodiak Brown Bear Center. A couple had been stranded and was happy to see the plane so they could get on with their trip. There were two couples there who had made it through yesterday, one French and one Austrian. They had stayed at Kulik Camp prior to us. (One was an orthopedic surgeon who explained that my surgery was going to be done improperly. In France they use no pins in the toes, and people are walking an hour after the operation. When I said my surgeon was from Rothman, he quieted down.)
Bear Watching in Alaska ~ July to August, 2018
Bear Claw Mountain
The Copper Whale put us in the worst room and then charged us for doing a load of laundry. It’s a shame after we’ve given them so much business. Very nice dinner at Orso. Walked around Anchorage.
Frustration
After a delicious dinner, we retired for the night.
Sunday, August 5: Good breakfast of crepes. There were two activity choices: go back to the Thumb or go for a boat ride around the lake. Everyone else went to look at bears, and we took the boat ride. It was great. We saw deer, loons, lots of ducks, bears, and beautiful scenery.
We came back for lunch, then Jay arrived with the Beaver and we flew back to Kodiak, a beautiful ride, and waited for the flight from Kodiak to Anchorage.
We were with a very nice Swiss couple, Elke and Dirk. They had been in Kodiak for three days, so Dirk took the role of Tour Guide and suggested we have lunch at Monk's Rocks. Good sandwiches and Jerry had borscht. The restaurant closed at 2 because their Russian Orthodox Bishop was coming that afternoon. I took some photos for Lee and Maria.