Today is the 28th – this will be my last day of internet for four days, since we are flying out on the float plane to join the Ursus, our home away from home while we go on shore to photograph the bears.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in Kodiak, perfect weather with great opportunities for photography. I enjoyed the day, but had one of those hard lessons when it comes to photography gear. I know I’ve written about some of the gear I’ve bought since I started traveling – two new Sony cameras, which I’ve been really pleased with (but are now obsolete), and two long lenses. I struggled buying both of those – for the longer lens, 200-600MM, I had intended to buy the latest from Sony, but after seeing photographers struggle with the size and weight in crowded Zodiac boats, I thought it might be best to get something a bit more compact, and wound up with a Tamron 150-500MM. That worked out well for me in Antarctica. Then I decided I needed something a bit lighter and more compact for trips like Iceland, where I probably would not be photographing wildlife. Once again, I chose another Tamron lens based on the weight. It worked out sort of OK on that trip, although I wished that I had a longer lens for photographing the puffins.
Well, yesterday those decisions came back to haunt me. I brought along the Tamron 50-400, based on what one of the Natural Habitat experts said on a Zoom call – we will be so close to the bears that you do not need a long lens. Unfortunately yesterday, I did. We started our day, with perfect weather, on a small boat wildlife cruise in the waters around Kodiak – aside from whales, there are otters and a variety of birds, including my personal favorites, puffins. We did see a lot of them, but never close enough for my pitifully small 400mm lens. My soon-to-be roommate on the Ursus has a 400-800mm Sony lens, and captured some incredible shots of the puffins, one in flight carrying a bunch of fish. A classic shot for these birds. I came away with zilch. The same goes for the otters. I really needed a 600mm, or a teleconverter which boosts the reach (1.4 or 1.6X). Sony makes one of those, but only for Sony lenses. There are also a lot of features you only get when hooking up Sony lenses to Sony cameras which are useful for serious photography.
Our second outing of the day also hit home on making better choices on what lenses to buy and to bring along on trips. We drove around some of the local river parks, looking for bears – the salmon run is in full gear now, and the rivers are packed with salmon….and fishermen. The bears try to avoid people, which is a good thing – there’s a lot of room in the rivers, and plenty of fish to go around. We hiked in and spotted a bear that was heading to the river, and then followed it upstream to spot where we could hopefully photograph it feeding. We never got too close, and it was an awkward spot, so I never got the monopod hooked up. I did get one or two OK shots, but the majority were a bit blurred. The bear got annoyed with all the people, and headed off to the woods after a few minutes. Darn. A longer Sony lens would have been better for this situation – better stabilization, and more reach.
I did get some nice shots of a juvenile bald eagle when the boat returned to the harbor – there’s nothing wrong with the lens, it’s great for some situations. Just not for distant puffins.
I’m not disappointed at all – it was a fun day, got to see some amazing scenery, lots of wildlife, and my first look at the Kodiak bears. Every trip is a learning experience. I think I’ll be buying myself a Christmas present from my favorite camera store this year.
My trip out to Kodiak was uneventful for a change. No giant spiders in the SeaTac Hilton, no lost luggage, no drunks in first class, and no worries about customs not letting me into Alaska. Phew. That was a relief. This was my first time in the Anchorage airport – it was strange to see most everyone wearing hiking gear, and a vast majority of passengers carrying fishing gear. You have to be careful walking around not to get impaled.
The weather in Anchorage was ominous, possibly an omen for the trip. It was pouring. I’ve got a week before I’m back there, so hopefully, this weather system will move out.
The flight to Kodiak from Anchorage is very short – less than an hour. It was a pleasant flight, sitting next to a Kodiak resident, chatting the entire way about life in that small town. He did mention that they just had their first ever bear mauling of a resident. She survived with a few puncture wounds – she was walking her dog and spooked a mama bear with her cubs. Not a good thing to do apparently. I’m glad that Aperture is not along on this trip.
Down Aperture, down boy!
Thankfully, the clouds parted as we approached Kodiak and I could see the town and bay as we landed – absolutely stunning. The airport is tiny of course, and shared with the Coast Guard. No jetways to the terminal as expected. I’m glad it was not raining.
I was surprised when I walked into the very small terminal building, to see someone from Natural Habitat standing there with a sign with my name – it was the trip lead, who came to drive me back to the hotel. That was nice – I was expecting to call the hotel, and stand around waiting for a while. He gave me a tour of the town, which was fast since there are only a few streets and buildings. By the time we were at the hotel, the skies had cleared a bit,and there was even a bit of sun. Time for a photo walk!
Kodiak is a commercial fishing town – not exactly photogenic. The harbor is crammed with fishing boats, and with a large salmon cannery along the water, the place looks like an industrial park. There are a handful of restaurants, a bar or two, a couple of coffee shops and that’s about it except for a few small museums. People do not come to Kodiak as a destination point – it’s a jump off for fishing trips, hunting and photo expeditions. The town has some interesting history. Aside from starting out as a Russian outpost in the 1800’s, it’s probably best known for the tragic tsunamis that pretty much destroyed the town from the 1964 earthquake. That quake registered a 9.2 on the Richter scale, and displaced a huge amount of the sea floor – the town dropped 6 feet, while just offshore, the sea floor on the other side of the fault raised 30 feet. Multiple waves hit the town, pretty much destroying the place. Fishing boats were washed up far inland. Complete devastation.
But they rebuilt the place, and it is a haven once again for commercial and recreational fishing. From talking with the resident on the plane, it is kind of a weird place to live in – you always have to be careful about bears since they wander into town, earthquakes are common, you have to go back to the mainland for just about anything, and then there is that long winter/long daylight thing you get in the far North. But, if you like fish and getting away from everything, this is one of those places to go. Hey, it’s got the smallest Walmart in the US, a McDonalds, and a Subway Sandwich. What more could you want?
My first walk around town was fun – I managed to walk by pretty much everything of interest in a little over an hour. The harbor is absolutely packed with all sizes of fishing boats. Some are large commercial trawlers, with seine nets, and quite a few smaller boats for recreational fishing Some in good shape, others not quite as much. It’s fun just wandering around on the long docks, watching the crews prep the boats. The town also has a large fish cannery, which was once upon a time, a WWII Liberty Ship – one of those big merchant ships that were built in mass quantities during the war (I have a post on the one in San Francisco). This one was gutted, set in concrete, and turned into a factory. It would probably do OK with another tsunami.
I was told that there was usually a lot of wildlife around the harbor, including otters, sealions, harbor seals, and the ever present bald eagles. Sure enough, I spotted a pair about 5 minutes into my walk.
I also visited one of the well known tourist sites, the Russian Orthoox Church with the big, blue onion domes. Most of the former Russian towns have one.
My second day in Kodiak was mostly a free day – the remaining seven adventurers, including my mystery room mate for the boat, arrive on Wednesday, so I have until the evening get-together to do whatever I please. Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to wander around again, visit the museums, and maybe take a walk across the bridge to the neighboring island – there was a nice park with hiking trails. After all, there are no risks to solo hiking in grizzly bear country.
I started off wandering the docks again – there was a lot of activity, so I just wanted to watch the crews prepping the boats for a while. I managed to not trip over anything and fall in water. There were some eagles flying around, but never in range even for the big lens I was lugging around. Good practice for our upcoming bear hikes. I next went off to a vantage point along the main channel and sat on a bench for a while, watching the boats sail off. And then I noticed a spout. And then another one! A whale??? I never saw much other than the back of something – they do get Orcas, Grey Whales and Humpbacks in the area. Probably a grey whale.
Next on my list for the morning was the Kodiak History Museum. This turned out much better than expected. The building is the oldest original log structure along the West coast, built by the Russians in 1847. Whoever built it knew what they were doing – it is still the original structure of logs, two stories worth, with the original moss insulations. It will probably outlast most of the homes in my neighborhood.
That chewed up most of the morning, so I stopped for a real breakfast with real coffee, and headed back to the hotel to reset for a while.
After a recharge (myself, not a car), I decided to try for the Northend Park on Near Island, a short 1 mile walk across a bridge. I thought I might get some nice shots of the town from there. The road leading up to the bridge is mostly uphill, and cuts through a residential area. One house had a puffin mural….cute. The weather was absolutely perfect by then – blue skies, light breeze, temperatures in the high 60’s. Absolutely not what I was expecting. I could have worn shorts. Really. A cruise ship had offloaded hundreds of tourists, all of whom seemed to be from Europe. Lots of Norwegians. So I had a lot of company walking around. The view from the bridge was great, but they had a chain link fence along the entire length. Probably to ward off jumpers during the long winter nights.
The park entrance was right off the end of the bridge – nothing there other than a trail map and some benches. The trial was so inviting, that I could not resist wandering down into the forest for a ways. Absolutely beautiful….maybe a bit creepy too, with filter sunlight, moss covered trees that looked like something out of a witchcraft type of film. No bears though, but I did not go too far and headed back into town.
My last stop for the day was the wildlife museum, which had displays of bears (of course), and a complete grey whale skeleton. They had a dead whale wash up on shore, and buried it for a few years to decompose naturally. When they dug it up, they had an articulated clean skeleton. Better than what they did in Iceland, carving up a dead Blue Whale. Yuck.
So, I had a pretty good start to this trip but I’ve seen enough of Kodiak. Tomorrow we go off on a wildlife cruise, and the next day, off to the Ursus to photograph the bears.
Oh, and there are no ice cream or gelato shops in Kodiak. But I did find a good coffee shop that sold some really good Frappuccino type drinks. You can’t always get what you want.
