IT’S A SMALL WOODEN SCOW with an even smaller woden 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 welcoming 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 coffee 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 “Espresso!” sits in a skiff anchored in the middle of the cove. “It marks a reef, too,” Jim says.

Good to know.

Alaska Traveler Chatter Jim Nardelli Kachemak Bay Salt Water espresso