The Jack-up Rig is Gone!

The jack-up rig in Kachemak Bay.

 Last August we woke up one morning to the sight of "something" out in Kachemak Bay.  As the buzz went around town, we heard it was a jack-up oil rig that had made a long journey to Homer and needed some repairs and work done on it before it would be put to use in Cook Inlet off of Anchor Point.  It was exciting to see this at first--a radical contrast to the beauty of nature we are surrounded by in Homer.  The rig was supposed to be gone within a few weeks.  It was hauled into the harbor for repairs, back out into the bay, then back into the harbor, where it finally rested until last Friday. 

The ensuing months saw a number of newspaper articles predicting when the rig was supposed to be gone...and then they stopped predicting because it never happened.  It became the local joke about the rig that wouldn't leave.  When heavy winds were buffeting the rig, it had to put its legs down in order not to be banged against the dock and damage the dock.  Locals became upset, meetings were held, excuses were made as to why the rig was still there.....

Last Friday the jack-up rig finally left the harbor without fanfare.  I was on the phone with someone Friday morning who said, "I'm watching 3 tugboats pull the jack-up rig out of Kachemak Bay right now."  When I mentioned it to people, they would rush to the window to see if it was really true--they had to see it with their own eyes what the Homer Spit looked like without the rig. 

The city of Homer and harbor certainly benefited from the huge influx of money the daily rental fee for the rig brought into city coffers.  The eyesore wasn't all a waste.  And now residents of Anchor Point will get to have it moored offshore, probably for a lot longer than 7 months!  If anyone is interested in more details of its visit (I just blog about my experience rather than the facts), there are plenty of newspaper articles about it.  Try Googling "Endeavor Homer Alaska" for all the details!

The jack-up rick in the harbor last summer