Resurrection Bay Campground Seward, Alaska Day 2

The harbor was a little cloudy as we walked into town to get on the Glacier Express.

It stayed a little foggy and then all at once the clouds lifted and it was a brilliant blue day!

We saw sea otters floating in groups or rafts as we made our way into Resurrection Bay.  They even hold hands to stay together.  These otters are more skittish than the sea otters that live closer to the harbor.  As the boat approached they would roll and dive under the water to get away.

There were lots of horned and tufted puffins skittering across the water.  They are diving birds and can reach depths of 600 feet in search of food.  Because the go down so deeply, they are heavy boned.  This makes flying a bit of a challenge for them and they often get a slow start coming up out of the water.  They are fun to watch with their brightly colored beaks.

We saw our first humpback whale as we made our way toward the Gulf of Alaska.  I do not take pictures while I am watching whales.  I am mesmerized by their size, and grace.

There were lots of kittiwakes on the rocks with the sea lions on the ledge below.  Kittiwakes are carefully monitored here as their nesting and population numbers are an indication of the health of the ecosystem.

We watched a mountain goat jumping agilely from rock to rock on the steep incline.  We were wondering how he was going to make his way back up.  The goats are amazing climbers.

We saw a second humpback and he was very active.  He even did a pectoral wave.

This tour took us into the Kenai Fjords National Park.  Holgate Glacier was the first we saw.  This is a tidewater glacier, 700 feet off the water and ½ mile wide.  The second glacier, also a tidewater glacier was the Aialik Glacier, 300 feet tall and a mile wide.  We could feel the gentle icy wind coming off the glacier and the captain turned off the engines so that we could hear the groaning, thunder clapping, cracking and popping of the ice.  When pieces fall off or calve it make a great splash and terrific noise.  We all could have stayed there all day watching the activity of the glacier.

Here is a picture with a boat in the far-left corner to help give you an idea of the scale of the glacier.

The boat passed easily through the icy water.  No icebergs here – only bergy bits 3 – 16 feet high and growlers smaller than 3 feet.  The crew scooped a piece of glacier ice onto the boat.  Kyle actually drank a glacier margarita prepared with the ice.

In order to get to the glaciers, the boat crosses over fjords, or deep u-shaped valleys beneath the water carved out by glaciers over thousands of years.  The fjord before the Aialik Glacier was 700 feet deep.

We were on our return trip when we saw the pod of 3 orcas.  The male with a dorsal fin about 6 feet high and a large female and a calf all sluicing through the deep green water together, the snow-capped mountains in the distance.  It was a breathtaking sight.

It was another perfect day!

We grilled wild caught sockeye salmon for our dinner.

A drive along the coast later in the evening to Lowell Point just to take the road to the end.  Along the way we passed a brewery.  Tim and Kyle were eager to try it out.  As they were walking they saw the Yukon Bar across the street.  Kyle had heard from someone on the cruise that this was a local hangout and that they often had live music.  It was a very unique place.  Dollar bills hung from the walls and ceiling.  There was a giant set of whale jaw bones from a baleen whale hanging above the bar with a mounted bear head.  There was so much stuff on the walls, that you could sit there all night and never see it all.  Milo’s was playing some funk music on his bass guitar.  This was stepping outside our box…and it was fun!

 This is Boomer…we named him Boomer…he was the bouncer.