Heaven is spelled "Seldovia"

Day 13, part 1: Homer to Seldovia to Talkeetna

The Mooney-flying Alaskan hosts I met last week suggested that I take at least a half-day to explore Seldovia, a hamlet across Kachemak bay from Homer. Given their favorable report of taking their Mooney (decidedly a fair off-pavement airplane with its low prop-to-ground clearance) to its gravel runway, I decided to give it a try. The brief visit would be one of the highlights of the trip.

After breakfast and another walking tour of Homer we came across a place everyone in town raved about: Two Sisters Bakery. I am a sucker for really well-done pastries, and a snob when it comes to mediocre ones, and this place was as good as I've had anywhere. It beats my favorite place close to home, Schat's, and that's no small feat. I point at a large sticky bun covered in cinnamon goo and pecans to my wife. She comes back with that, a large chocolate bread roll that's more chocolate than bread, a heavenly roll, and tall coffee. The B&B breakfast had nothing wrong with it, but this really started the day!

Fueled, we walked back to the airplane. The baby Eagle was still hanging out in the nest, not making any attempts to fly this morning. Walking past the water aerodrome the way to the airport, we caught a float plane starting its takeoff run - the loaded C185 (or 206?) took much longer in time and distance than I was seeing with solo Super Cubs at Lake Hood, taking most of the lake to get airborne.

Back at Homer airport I find the FSS and the briefer reminds me of Chris, the DJ character on Northern Exposure. I think he knew Santa Cruz too, not surprising. He provided a leisurely briefing, and had a few good stories to tell about life, the local music scene, and our new favorite bakery. I promise I'll come back to file after making a hop to Seldovia w/o flight plan as i'll be in radio contact, or should be, the whole time.

Yesterday we landed after flying IFR from Anchorage, with the assumption that the weather that rained on us camping the night prior would clear, and eventually it did, providing a nice clear sky to the west yesterday evening. Today that's gone. Its high overcast -- ceiling 7000' or so, with occasional rain due to a nearly stalled warm front stretching across the Cook Inlet off of a low off to the west - the weather breaks between storms don't last very long, though thankfully this next storm is weaker. You could just see the showers obscuring the horizon where Augustine Island's volcano was visible in the clear last night. Despite this, the weather is fundamentally good, and should be good VFR for our Seldovia hop, and then back up to Talkeetna in the late afterrnoon.

By the time we're airborne its past 11. Oh well, lazy tourists on sabbatical and all.

I want to show my wife glaciers from above while the opportunity presented itself. This won't be like the northern side of the Wrangell-St. Elias range like the week before, but several glaciers in Kenai Fjords park make their way down toward Katchemak bay from the icefield above, visible from on the ground at Homer. In the air and going across the bay, my wife quickly spotted a large pod of whales off the right wing during climbout. On to the glaciers, she was quite impressed, but I had to hold back as the grandeur from last weeks' overflight was still on another level.

After zipping up and down a few glaciers we turned down the coast for the quick trip to Seldovia. The coastline opposite Homer is dotted with occasional signs of man, wooded islands, and still inlets. A truly beautiful place. About 10 miles to go to Seldovia, and we noticed that the rain shower across the Cook Inlet is now closer. Not a thick shower, but its apparent there's a good chance we'll get rained on if we go to Seldovia, walking around for a few hours. Doubt creeps into my mind. This feeling, like an old lazy bum, would prefer to sit and watch airplane videos on youtube instead of doing anything productive. He even gets a word in, asking my wife if she really wants to walk around in the rain again. Now the doubt is in her mind. Somehow I push the doubt out of my mind. We're here, this place has been recommended, we've got the right gear, who cares if we walk around all afternoon in the rain?.

Seldovia airport is just over 1,800' of gravel, with trees on both ends of the runway, separated from the runway with 200' & 500' "safety areas" of water. Before even contemplating going in there, I dug out my airplane's flight manual with its paltry set of 1960s performance charts and saw that at maximum gross weight, the airplane should be able to land and takeoff again in less than half the runway. The "book numbers" provide no provision for an unpaved surface, soft-field technique, and ginger acceleration to keep the propeller free of dings from rock. I knew from prior experience at my home field what the airplane will do (when I don't screw up), and decide that the 100% safety margin (1,800' vs 900') should be sufficient. I'm also about 10% under maximum weight, which will help. Still, its a small runway and requires that a pilot new to the area be on their 'A' game and abort the landing (or subsequent takeoff) if certain parameters that will affect distance are not met.

We arrive and I decide to fly an entire pattern to scope out the field - starting on the upwind leg - at about 1,000' AGL. Looks doable, so we try for the landing. Wind is calm down here, so no need to worry about gust factor. Final at 75mph slowing to 70 during the slight dog-leg turn through the clearing in the trees. Touchdown isn't smooth but is within a couple airplane lengths of the start of the runway after chopping the power and we get off about half way down, right where all the locals do later when I get to watch them land. Who says you can't get a Mooney into a short strip?

The walk into Seldovia is where our first inklings of what a special place this is - finally getting a taste of real Alaska. A large aluminum drainage pipe runs under the road leading from the airport 1/4 mile to down. At the base of it is a pool of later about 3' deep and 15' in diameter. It is filled with Salmon, the stream form it to the ocean barely enough for one to scoot by due to the relatively low tide. Is this little drainage and creek their actual spawning run?



A couple hundred yards later we cross a bridge going to town, where the real bonanza starts: hundreds of Salmon hover in the shallow inlet. A fellow comes by to fish from the bridge and snags one on the gill while reeling in his lure. Like shooting fish in a barrel. A boy and girl each start to fish, and will later be rewarded with dinner for a family. A true bounty. The inlet is postcard perfect itself, with houses perched above the water on high pilings due to the large tidal swings, rowboats moored nearby.

We spent the next couple hours expiring the quiet town - accessible by air or sea, in intermittent rain. Pushing that doubt aside was the best move we made all day. Life moved more slowly here. Another case where the photos do the talking.

Downtown Seldovia

Back at the airport, a Cessna 180 landed as we had a late lunch getting ready to go. I didn't pay much attention until its occupants unloaded their cargo into the pickup truck next to us, and I saw a large set of fuzzy antlers protruding out.

"We got this on the North Slope. Have been making trips back and forth to haul the meat out."

I learned a bit about how to preserve Caribou for the several days that it took to get the meat back to where they'd landed their airplane, and then to shuttle it and their gear back across the state. The pilots, both retired airline guys, confirmed my intuition as far as the community and lifestyle were concerned.

"Seldovia is like Alaska twenty-five years ago" one remarked. I could identify with that being raised in rural west Hawai`i.

Before departing I paced the first half of the runway and picked out a go/no go spot where I expected to be airborne, and to plan my route of taxi and power application to avoid any large rocks. Fortunately a nice path that was mostly dirt occupied the southern end of the runway, allowing me to do a nice 180 at the end of the runway and not have to delay much in getting power applied on the takeoff roll. Going to full throttle with little to no ground speed tends to be worse for the propeller as an area of low pressure is created on the ground beneath it. Stones can literally be sucked into the prop. By bringing the power up slowly as the airplane gains speed, this is minimized.

Near Soldotna, northbound

The takeoff went as planned. I felt the main gear leave the ground just where I expected and I held the airplane in ground effect to get the gear up and accelerate to climb speed. A slight dog-leg to bypass the higher terrain and we were out, over the ocean again.

We flew back to Homer - taking all of 10 minutes - with the intention of getting gas, but I read the fuel price in error (mistaking the much cheaper jet fuel for avgas). We had enough to continue on, so I decided to again stop in Wasilla for gas before going on to Talkeetna, our next evening stop. The trip back up the Kenai was delightful, this time allowing us to get to know the landscape, and then on to Talkeetna as I did the week before.