Sunday, October 5, 2008

Otters Surfing...

While most of the nation has just begun the Fall season today somehow felt like the first day of winter here in Homer. The clear, warm days of last week gave way to a large storm that blew in from the north Pacific and brought us a bit of snow and some breaking surf.


We were reading the paper in the living room when Linda noticed some smoke out on the Bay. Along with the whitecaps there was a Coast Guard boat and two helicopters hovering near what looked to be a small boat in trouble. Smoke flares bracketed the scene as a chopper came in low with a cable and lifted someone out of the water. Then the Guard moved in and towed the very small open boat back toward the harbor. Haven't heard what actually happened but it was good to see that the Guard is on the job when needed.

Later, we drove out the spit with our old flat bed dog truck. Just opposite the entrance to the fishing hole we spotted a group of 20 or so sea otters diving and swimming within 100 feet of shore. There was a pretty good surf breaking onto the spit close to the road and the otters seemed to playing in the waves. Eventually we figured out that the choppy waves were stirring up the bottom and exposing some clams for the otters to feed on. But it sure looked like they were enjoying the "body surfing".