Halibut Cove

May 28, 2015

I have always heard about Halibut Cove, its long boardwalk, galleries, and the lone restaurant the Sultry. Recently I couldn’t get away from all the dreamy pictures of it that kept popping up. I reallllly wanted to go, but I knew that spending extra money to get to a touristy destination like Halibut Cove wasn’t high on my husband’s priority list.

Enter Woodsen’s cousin Jenna and her husband Jeff. Lucky for us they decided to take a break from the hustle and bustle of New York City and make a trip to Alaska 🙂 😀

I knew the perfect place take them to!

The plotting began about 3 months ago and most of the trip revolved around celebrating Jeff’s Birthday with dinner at the Sultry. We booked the West Overlook Cabin in Halibut Cove, kayaks, and of course the water taxi too. A couple weeks later I called to make our dinner reservations and found out that the Sultry, and basically all of Halibut Cove, didn’t open till 2 days after we left. Noooooo! I had a meltdown for about a minute then remembered that where we were going would be beautiful with or without Halibut Cove and there would be plenty for us to do.

We left Anchorage on a Wednesday morning, which meant I had just gotten off work. I groggily picked up Jenna and the Birthday boy Jeff, finished packing up the car, and we hit the road. We made a mandatory stop at the Fat Olive for lunch before heading to True North Kayak Adventures for our ride out to the cabin.

Check out what I found aboard the Bonnie Ann!

A short boat ride and we arrived at our new home for the next two days.

It didn’t take long to throw our stuff in the cabin and find our way down to the water.

I can’t help myself when I find this mustache moss.

One of my favorite things about camping… The food 🙂

The next day we decided to head to Halibut Cove and check it out despite it being a little pre-season.

The cabin we stayed at was in Halibut Cove Lagoon which has a skinny little channel at the opening. With a little bit of planning we timed it right and rode the tide out and got to see starfish in every shade of pink and orange clinging to the rocks. On the way back we rode back on the tide, it was amazing! Like a river that runs two ways!

Next came beautiful rock formations, oyster farms, and the otters and curious seal I was too slow to get pictures of.

Halibut Cove definitely wasn’t quite awake, but we still managed to peak into galleries and jealously watch as family and friends of the Sultry ate their steaming meals. We walked around the corner and sulked a bit as we ate our packed lunches.

Our view at lunch was nothing to complain about!

At one of the galleries we found a print we really liked, unfortunately we didn’t have enough cash and they hadn’t got their credit card machine running yet. Not to worry, we were quickly informed that they take checks and we should just take what we wanted then send them a check in the mail when we got back home. 🙂 I love small towns and trusting Alaskans. And yes we made sure to send the check.

What we missed out on at lunch we made up with dinner back at the cabin

Heading back home. Hoping the good weather will hold for the rest of our time off and the rest of Jeff & Jenna’s trip to AK!

Moral of the story… If you want to go to Halibut Cove, wait till after Memorial day. 🙂

Still so many more places, cabins and things to explore in Katchemak Bay. Can’t wait to get back!

More info about Overlook West cabin in Halibut lagoon

There are three cabins East, West, and the Main Overlook cabin. You can see what would be the dock if it were fixed, and the main cabin in this picture. The east cabin is between the dock and the main cabin and they both share a boardwalk with the rangers station. Both of these cabins have fences around them. Which I guess could be good if you had small children, but we felt a bit trapped.

The main cabin has a living area, two bedrooms and covered patio. It also has a beautiful view and nice little boardwalk to a lookout with a bench (and a fence around it).

The West cabin is a 0.8-mile hike from the dock. If you are getting dropped off via water taxi make sure they drop you off at the West cabin. We unloaded all of our stuff then realized we were at the ranger station and were going to have to hike. Thankfully our boat driver was still there and able reload us and drop us off at the right cabin. We would still recommend True North, he was a good sport about it.

This is the inside of West cabin. It also has a nice BBQ pit area with a nice view.

On our last day, we had time to hike to China Poot cabin, about 2.5 miles of ups and downs to the lake and the cabin. We bailed out the boat that was half underwater just to find the holes that got it there in the first place. Not exactly seaworthy.