Kodiak

Breakfast time and just pulling in to Kodak harbour. Today’s outing is to Fort Abercrombie, not a fort anymore just the remains of a few buildings and artillery items. The headland was the protection for the harbour although it was never needed as the island was never attacked, but became the military base for the recapture of Unalaska and Dutch Harbour.
The headland is now a park with trails through the woods along the coastline or around the lake which lies at the centre of the headland. We took the route down by the lake and followed that to the coast, then had to double back a short way to the path which climbed to the headland summit and derelict buildings. We then walked back along the coast path towards the pick up point for the shuttle bus, (here in Alaska where we have stopped it has been yellow school buses, the towns we have stopped at are too small for a bus service or a separate coach company). Apart from the views the main observation was a pair of eagles sitting on the cliffs as we walked back. Didn’t see any bears today, but at one of the campsites in the park that we crossed there was a sign saying to be careful with food an food waste as a bear had been there last Friday. Although lucky again with the weather as bright and sunny, the headland was quite damp in places despite there being no recent rain which learnt when we stopped to talk to a couple of sets of local walkers who were intrigued about all the strangers in red jackets wandering around. A visiting cruise ship is rather a novelty here and all the locals had all seemed to be aware that a strange ship was in port. Also in port ( according to our bus driver) are the fishing boats used in the “Deadliest Catch” reality fishing tv series. There was an option to drop off in “downtown” on the way back, but the tour notes had been updated to say that rage town museum ($5 entry fee cash only) was closed and as the only other downtown attraction was the local McDonalds ( pointed out to us by our bus driver on the way there) we just returned to the ship for a lazy afternoon of reading. Going back to the park being damp, the fir trees had various mosses growing all over the branches, have included a couple of pictures.Read more