This week’s guest post is from travel blogger, Payje Bier who’s currently living in and blogging about Homer Alaska.
I grew up in a small town in Colorado. Aside from having a high school football team named “the Sailors” (WHY?) I had no experience at all with life on the coast. It led me to believe that oceans, beaches, fresh seafood and saltwater air were for vacations only, and were to be revered. So, when my boyfriend and I decided to move to Alaska, I knew I wanted to aim for water. We threw a dart at Google maps, and ended up in Homer. Thank God.
Homer is the world’s most epic and perfect mix of mountains and ocean. Blue rivers from the glaciers that sprawl across the area drain into a sea that, on a clear day, shines a brilliant shade of green that I haven’t seen on a color palette anywhere in the world. Massive jagged peaks surround the other side of the bay, giving the illusion, when you can’t see the ocean that you are in the middle of an inland mountain range. As a cherry on top of the Homer Alaska cake, bald eagles perch on driftwood by the dozens.
You probably think I’m making this up, don’t you?
Snow-capped mountains with a seagull, photo/Payje Bier
Now I’ll get to the point. I was dying to see a starfish. I made a little list of things I wanted to find and see while we were in Alaska, and you might be surprised by how short it is:
- Starfish
- An octopus
- Gold
A trip across the bay to Otter Cove provided me with my first demand. Justin (my boyfriend) and I scrambled over some rocks, and were walking around the beach when he yelled “Come check this out! Hurry!” As if starfish move like cheetahs or something. He pointed into the water, where he had espied a family of four different colored starfish. AWWW!
“Can you tell how excited I was?”, photo Justin Hayes
I turned back around the way we came, and it was like I had new eyes. There were starfish EVERYWHERE. Seriously everywhere! I must have been stepping all over them on the way to the beach. It was like an incredible fiesta of starfish. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy (only a slight exaggeration). The starfish were every different color you can imagine, and they clung to every rock and every surface along the beach.
Starfish on rocks, photo/Payje Bier
There were other crazy sea creatures in the tide pools there too, but this post is dedicated to my favorites, the starfish.
This is called a “sun star”. (I think it’s getting eaten by crabs.), photo/Payje Bier
I basically felt like Christmas had come early that day. If you are still wondering about the octopus and the gold, we haven’t come across those yet, but I have no doubt in my mind that we will. Justin said maybe we’ll kill two birds with one stone and find a golden octopus. Maybe we will Justin, maybe we will.
Payje Bier is an adventurer… to take the words out of Van Morrison’s mouth she has a “gypsy soul.” She loves to travel, and she loves photography, but mostly she loves travel photography. Her most recent journey has brought her (and her boyfriend Justin who is her partner in adventure crime) to Homer, Alaska. You can live vicariously though Payje and Justin (or just keep up with their trip) on her blog, Life All Over, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
I had a similar experience with sand dollars on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. I had always searched beaches for sand dollars- they intrigued me. Occasionally I’d find a broken one and once out on Montauk, Long Island I found two tiny ones. But the search continued every time I got to a beach. We took the car out on this beach and began to walk around and I spied a sand dollar. Then I began to look around. They were ALL over and you could see tiny bubbles in the sand- there were more under there. I collected a bunch. The bad news was that after a while they began to smell. It took a lot to fix that problem. Over 20 years later, I still have a few of them. This sure brought back memories. Thanks for sharing your starfish moment with us.
Billie Frank recently posted..Photo of the week: ’54 Pontiac spotted on the High Road from Santa Fe to Taos
The descriptions of your adventures and your wonderful photographs make me want to hop on a plane and head to Homer, AK! I never knew that startfish came in so many colors and sizes and I can’t wait to hear about your other adventures.
It made me want to get om a plane to Homer, too. I love Payje’s blog Life on the Road- I’m a loyal reader. Loved that she did this post for us.
Great pictures Payje! I’m learning more than I ever knew about Alaska! It’s beautiful!
Thanks so much you guys, I’m so glad you are enjoying our adventures!
Payje recently posted..Otter Cove, Alaska and “The Luck of the Draw”
Enjoy every moment of it! Hugs! A.