I keep waiting to tell this story until I have the time to do it right; when I can focus on the pictures and the sequence of events and the like. But seriously, if I keep waiting, it's not going to happen. It was too hard to do anything with the minuscule bandwidth we had underway and my week and a half at home have been exhausting at the very least. (Part of that is my own doing, with a long drive to northern CA and lots of family time, but that's part of living near family.) So, I'm just going to tell the story. And then send you to the nice people who hosted us up in Homer.
When we knew for sure that we were going to get our Alaska port visit, I started looking up things to do, bear watching seemed like to coolest thing on the list; after all, I can hike and kayak here in San Diego. So, I did a little research to see which of the several companies was the best fit for me. After looking at a few websites, I found and e-mailed the Hallo Bay Bear Watching folks and it turned out that I was a pretty good fit for them, too. Clint, the owner, was very kind and it turns out that his father was a Navy veteran and had fought at Leyte Gulf, among other places. Some of you may remember my transit through Leyte Gulf at the beginning of my deployment last year. We made all the arrangements, and our wonderful guide DeWaine picked us up early in the morning and took us off to the airport.
We were warned as we left that the weather at Hallo Bay itself was bad, visibility-wise and that we might end up going to an alternate site. No problem, we Sailors know full well what it's like to have your plans depend on the one thing you can least control. We boarded the plane and headed out. The interesting thing there is that while it's a reasonably short distance from point A to point B, the plane actually has to go to point B via points C and D; because the bay is just wide enough that there are areas where if the plane lost power, it couldn't glide to a landing safely and the water is too cold to plan for a water landing. At least that's how I remember the explanation. I didn't mind though, the views from the plane were pretty spectacular and I'm glad to have had the time to enjoy them. Like this lake, for instance.
As we had been warned, we ended up going to a secondary spot, which was a little less pristine and much less isolated than Hallo Bay. We did see some bears.
But they were on their side of the river and we were on the opposite, which honestly, isn't really a horrible scenario. Respecting the boundaries of a wild animal strikes me as being a completely logical and appropriate choice. We saw several family groups and were enjoying the view when several other groups, also weathered out of their normal locations, arrived. (As a side note, most of the guides/naturalists for the other groups carried firearms while ours carried a flare - something I noticed and that confirmed my choice of company.) It got crowded quickly, so we left.
While we walked back to the plane, we saw a trio of bears way down the beach and sort of meandering along the water towards us. We decided that we'd wait and see what they did rather than head into the plane for lunch. Well, except the pilot, who being smarter than the rest of us, hopped into the cockpit out of the rain and had his lunch. In the meantime, our bear family headed along the beach in our direction. Mama bear and what we decided was a female cub were interested in the water and the grasses along the edge of the beach. Little brother bear though, he had to do some checking out of the Things on His Beach.
The airplane belonging to one of the other groups, for instance. That required some serious checking out. Then, he caught sight of us. So did Mama and Sister Bear, but they still weren't interested. Brother bear though - either he wanted to check out the plane we stood in front of, or he wanted to run us off. Either way, the little bear came right up to us. Close enough that DeWaine, after a few shouts (imagine yelling "No" or "Bad!" at your dog or your two year old and you'll get the general tone) pulled out his flare and got it ready to pop at the bear.
That little bear charged right at us. He paused briefly when DeWaine yelled at him, then decided to come right back at us! I can't say I was particularly frightened, because the two main parts of my brain were (1) laughing at the way DeWaine was yelling at the little bugger and (2) hoping that if I kept snapping the shutter, one of the pictures would turn out okay.Eventually, between the shouting and Mama Bears calls (she was uninterested in us and was going to leave him to his own devices if he kept being a little dummy, or at least, that's how I interpreted her behavior and grumblings,) he turned and headed the other direction. But not without shooting one last dirty look at us, to tell us he was only leaving because he wanted to leave and not for any other reason.
And of course, the old Ops Boss and I looked at each other as DeWaine paced off the distance (15-20 feet) to see how close he'd gotten and decided it was an amazing experience. (Or, we said "That was SO cool!" like 12 year old boys, but it's all the same, right?)
So there's my bear story. It didn't really end there, because we headed back and then the wonderful DeWaine drove us around downtown Homer to show us what was what, and patiently waited while I bought Wild Berry chocolates (yum!) and tea (also yummy) and then took us into the office. Where they wouldn't let us pay because the trip had been cut short. Mind you, I don't think that many who paid full price have ever had quite the experience we did, and we thought they'd earned every penny of it, but they refused. I did provide a couple of ship tours, because really, how can I resist showing off my baby to anyone who shows even the slightest of interest? (No really, come to San Diego and visit the ship; I mean, why else would you visit???)
I should note that my mother, who is going to be working with a search dog from Anchorage in the next week or so has been won over by my claims that Homer is the best American port visit I ever made (yes, even better than Key West) and has convinced the dog's owner that when she brings the pup home, they need to visit. And I think I have them planning to call Hallo Bay and have their own adventure in paradise. And I'm going back, for longer than three days. Not this year because my schedule is enough to drive anyone insane, but when I've moved on.
And here's a really neat article on the Hallo Bay folks from Alaska On the Go- which looks like a neat adventure log for the state.