Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
— 55 —
Salt Water Espresso
IT'S A SMALL WOODEN SCOW
with an even smaller wooden house perched on top of it. In
the window is a neon script “Open” sign. There are mooring stanchions along the edge, and
the proprietor of
Nardelli's
, a solid man with a lot of hair flopping into his eyes and a wel-
coming grin on his face stands ready with a hand to catch your line.
“I came back on a late run from Bear Cove, so I decided to tie up for the night at the cof-
fee float at Halibut Cove,” says Mako Hagerty of Mako's Water Taxi in Homer. “I turned
in, and the next thing I know there's a knock at the window and there's Nardelli with a cup
of coffee. Man, I love this place!”
The setting is idyllic, if a little damp this rainy, foggy Saturday morning in Halibut Cove.
On the southern edge of Kachemak Bay, it's a jumble of rocks and reefs and trees and berry
bushes with modest homes vying with McMansions scattered along the shoreline, most
built on docks over the water.
The scow is moored on the north-facing shore. A hand-painted sign which reads “Es-
presso!” sits in a skiff anchored in the middle of the cove. “It marks a reef, too,” Jim says.
Good to know.
Inside, the tiny house looks like any other espresso stand, black and chrome espresso
machine, refrigerator, soda water dispenser, and your lattes come in skinny with a shot of
chocolate syrup and a dusting of powdered cocoa. It's just that this espresso stand is float-
ing.
Jim steams milk for hot chocolate for eight-year old Ian Hall, who arrived from his par-
ents' Halibut Cove house in an aluminum skiff and outboard. Kayakers Scott Burbank and
Susan Abramovich arrive, reporting sighting a black bear and a coyote on the beach on the
way from their house in Peterson Bay. They own
St. Augustine's
, a kayaking business out
