Visiting Seldovia, AK by Boat

If you haven’t been able to tell yet, we really enjoyed Homer, AK! We decided to take our chances at another wildlife boat tour that doubled with a trip to the island community of Seldovia, AK (south-west of Homer). Fingers were crossed for slightly better weather than our first wildlife cruise in the Kenai Fjords! Camping out on Homer spit made our commute to the boat dock quick and simple (it was basically across the street from where we were staying). We booked tickets on the Rainbow Connection. For $59/adult they offered a 7-hour trip. We departed Homer Spit around 10:30AM and headed to Gull Island Seabird Rookery (home to 15,000 seabirds, including 8 pelagic- or open sea- species that nest there every year). From there, we headed to Eldridge Passage, a place to find sea otters, ducks, eagles, and occasionally, whales. After about 1.5 hours, we arrived at Seldovia, where we had three hours to explore and walk around before hopping back on our boat and traveling back to Homer. The boats had a naturalist on board who was extremely knowledgable and talked all about the Kachemak Bay. The boat itself was fairly large and they offered tea and coffee onboard. There were seats both outside and inside and the weather was much better than in the Kenai Fjords. We had a fantastic time and would definitely take the trip again. Plus, we were fortunate enough to see whales, birds, ducks, eagles, and sea otters!! Here are some pictures from the boat trip over:

Whale Tail!

Friendly Otter

 

Curious Otter

 

 

Elephant with His Trunk Down

Elephant with His Trunk Up!

When our boat pulled around the bend and into the Seldovia Harbor, we were greeted by a series of beautifully colored houses and buildings. The dock was chock full of boats (the only way to get to Homer after all) and there were people bustling around getting their work done. We disembarked and enjoyed a nice picnic at a table up on a hill looking down on the docks.

Enjoying a Picnic!

Seldovia, AK

After our lunch, we walked around the small community. There was some funky wood statues of fish and a historic boardwalk with shops such as the Thyme on the Boardwalk Nursery. We took photos of gorgeous flowers and enjoyed a gorgeous day in this small town hidden from the world. We also stopped by a Coffee Shop and met the owner who had just started the business perhaps a week before. When we entered she was just taking a large batch of homemade muffins out of the oven. Her shop was located down a wood staircase in an old wood building right on the water. It was cozy and wonderful and the hot coffee and muffin were just what was needed!

 

Fish Statue in Seldovia

Funky Birdhouse on Seldovia’s Historic Boardwalk

Teapot Planters

Flowers in Seldovia

More Flowers in Seldovia

A Little Coffee Shop on the Water

After our allotted 3-hours, we headed back to our boat, snapped a few more photos of fisherman cleaning their catches and birds eating the leftovers, and then traveled back on to Homer. On the Spit, we were lucky to catch a glimpse of one of the Deadliest Catch’s boats at dock before enjoying a nice stroll on the beach. It was a wonderful day!

Cleaning Fish

The Birds Feast

A Perfect End to a Perfect Day

Here’s a picture of our route for all you map-minded people out there!

 

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Happy 2015, everyone! We hope you had a great holiday season with your family and friends! We spent Christmas in Pennsylvania with my parents which was very relaxing. Then we headed to Ocean City, MD for New Year’s… where something crazy and completely unexpected happened: Andrew proposed! It happened at sunrise on New Years Day. I had absolutely no idea. I didn’t even know he had a ring or what the ring was… turns out, Andrew is sneaky (in the best way possible).

We shot a video of the sunrise using our IPhone and the Time-Lapse feature. The video is set to Caroline Pennel’s version of Anything Can Happen. Here’s the link to the video on our YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yjfcbAgTNE

 

Here’s a picture of the ring:

Engagement Ring

It’s recycled platinum with a type of garnet- a Hessonite. It’s the perfect ring for many reasons but even more perfect because it’s orange (my favorite color) and it’s his birthstone. I’m a not a huge diamond fan and as you either already learned or will learn, I don’t follow the norm. My birthstone… also happens to be a diamond. Additionally, the setting came from a company that is eco-conscious and uses all recycled metals. Anyway, it is perfect.

After the proposal, we spent about an hour looking at rental houses in Costa Rica… that’s where we met and we had talked about how fun it would be to have a wedding there…so we looked at ridiculously priced mansion that no one in their right mind could ever afford… just because. We went out to a lazy breakfast at Dough Roller and just “bathed in the love” for a while. We called our families that afternoon. This leads me to the first thing that we learned about getting engaged/planning a wedding: we had no idea how long the calls and conversations about getting engaged would be. I’m not saying it was a bad thing; on the contrary, it was so fun to hear how excited our parents and siblings and siblings-in-law were about the news… we just figured the conversations would be shorter. About 4 hours later (hehe– lots to talk about!) we were exhausted and utterly smitten. :0).

We spent the first part of Friday at Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, DE. Fantastic place, by the way. The tours are free and you get 4 free samples from their list of at least 12 different beers. They also have a non-alcoholic beverage on tap called Beach Beer. The tour is over an hour long but takes you through the different areas of the brewery and explains all the different processes and beers made there as well as the bottling facility. Very awesome. Another post on Dogfish Head later.

Four Free Beer Samples!

 

After that, we headed to Andrew’s other surprise… the Ultimate Couples Retreat. It included a 1.5-hour full body massage, a bottle of champagne with strawberries and chocolate fondue, an hour in a hot tub, and then dinner. Dinner consisted of three courses: the first course was granny smith apples, baguette, and veggies with a 17-herb cheese fondue; the second course was chicken, shrimp, filet mignon, and vegetables with a broth fondue; and the third course was graham crackers, marshmallows, cookies, bananas, and strawberries with chocolate fondue. The dinner was served with a bottle of wine (Andrew requested Moscato for me… yummmm!)

First course: 17-herb cheese fondue!

So, 2015 started off on a high note for us– and we couldn’t be more excited for the future!