Sunday, May 8, 2016



Today we took a boat from the Homer Spit to Yukon Island. From there, we got in kayaks and spent 6 hours kayaking around the island with True North Kayak Adventures. Most of our kayaks were tandem, and they were equipped with pedals for the back passenger that connected to a rudder. This helped us to navigate the water. 


We saw lots of marine life while paddling in the more shallow water, including lots of sunflower sea stars. These sea stars are much larger than true stars, and can have up to 24 arms. We had the opportunity to watch one of these sea stars flip itself over. 



While circumnavigating the island we also had the chance to try seaweed. It tasted rather salty. Today was the lowest low tide of the year, which meant we were able to see lots of creatures. 



We passed by a homestead on the island which had been passed down through generations in a particular family. The man who currently owns the property grew up on the island and was homeschooled with his siblings in a small house overlooking the water.

When we reached our halfway mark on the other side of Yukon Island, we stopped at a beach for lunch. Our guides were generous enough to provide us with granola bars and hot chocolate. Here we learned that part of the island was an archaeological site that had been started by an archaeologist named Frederica de Laguna. De Laguna is from Pennsylvania and attended Bryn Mawr College. On the island she discovered a midden (a heap of trash that accumulated when Alaska Natives occupied the island) that was three layers deep. We were also able to climb to the top of a steep hill on the island, where we were careful not to touch any of the push key we passed. At the top of this hill we had a great view of the bay and stood by a burial ground where two caskets containing 62 corpses had been discovered.



After returning to Anchor Point, we prepared an Italian meal and surprise desserts for Paige because today is her birthday. After dinner we gave Paige a birthday card from all of us and enjoyed pudding and chocolate cake.





Junko Natsume and Brianna Buckley

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