May 30, 2011- Monday- Memorial Day We left Soldotna early this morning and on our way to Seward for a Kenai Fjords Boat Cruise. It’s a great drive and the scenery is fantastic, the sun is shining and 48 degrees. We stopped a few times to take pictures of the mountains, lakes and rivers. We turned onto Alaska Highway 1 towards Seward with 26 miles to go. We are at Moose Pass, of course not one Moose, I believe it's just a name. We arrived in Seward and have enough time to drive through town. It’s small but a cute town and I took a picture of the train depot. We parked, checked in and are heading for the boat. We have a large table, window view and heat. It’s quite cold outside and I’m happy to be inside. We are leaving port and the Captain is telling us that Seward is a charming coastal town with a population of about 3,171 people. He reminded us of the devastating Earthquake of 1964 and it just about wiped out this little town, but they rebuilt and tourism and fishing is their mainstay. It wasn’t long after we left port that we saw the sea otters. They are an endangered species in western Alaska and are the smallest marine mammal and the largest member of the weasel family. The average one weighs 100 pounds, but at birth they only weigh 5 pounds. They have the densest fur in the animal kingdom-up to a million hairs per square inch. I don’t have the time to catch one and count the hairs, so I won’t dispute it, however, they do have the cutest face.
As we traveled on we saw Dall‘s Porpoises and they played, rolled and jumped out of the water entertaining us for quite a while. It wasn’t long and we saw an Orca or killer whale for the first time. The Orca is the largest member of the dolphin family and is a toothed whale. The Resident Orcas are highly social and travel in family groups called “pods” and hunt fish. Transient Orcas travel in small numbers and silently hunt marine mammals. We were so lucky to see them all. We also saw a Gray Whale and they have the longest annual migration of any mammal; they travel along the coast from the calving grounds in Baja to Arctic feeding grounds north of Russia and Alaska. Next we saw the humpback whale and they spend June to September feeding here in Alaska then migrate to the Hawaiian Islands or Baja, California where they give birth and breed. We came upon a Tufted Puffin but I wasn’t concerned about getting its picture because they said we’d see hundreds of them. So I snapped one picture anyways while waiting for the Orca whale to surface again. I waited and waited. I finally went back inside and so did most of the others. We all saw it; the whale breached 70% of its body out of the water. It was so spectacular!!!! Of course we have no picture of it, but Dave and I will always remember it. We just looked at each other afterwards and could not believe what we had just seen. We then swung over to Resurrection Bay to see the hundreds of Horned and Tufted Puffins- well, both of them (2) were too far away for my camera – that was it. Not close enough for me to get a good picture. Darn it, that makes me sad. Oh well, at least I got to see one. These birds are members of the Alcid family and they propel themselves through the water with their wings and use their feet as rudders and dive depths estimated at 250ft. I did see that one Tufted Puffin earlier in the day, but not hundreds as they had said. Tufted Puffins are a lot like the Horned Puffins except they raise one chick per year that both parents feed. We went around the corner and saw the Stellar Sea Lions. They are the largest member of the eared seal family and live here year round and can be found along the coast of North Pacific. They are an endangered species, and have lost 80% of their population over the last 30 years. They have cameras mounted on the mountain to study them and hope to discover how to save them. We went to a different cove and saw Harbor Seals that live here year round. They are members of the true seal family, and have no external ear flap, love to eat fish, shrimp and crawl up on the rocks and sleep until they eat again. What a life!
We moved on and had lunch in a beautiful cove as we slowly move toward the Aialik Glacier. It’s the largest tidewater glacier in the national park and we can feel the boat hitting the ice floating in the water. You can see that 1/3 of the iceberg was above the water and 2/3 of the ice is under the water. I can’t explain the noises and sounds as the boat is hitting the ice. I wonder if they could feel and hear the Titanic hitting these large chunks of ice. I hope we don’t experience that sinking feeling. We stayed there for a while and saw the wall of the glacier ice calve into the fjords. David got an awesome picture of it calving. After lunch we slowly moved out of the cove and past all the ice chunks again. It's an amazing view and experience. We came upon more orca whales and saw the Fluke. This is when the humpback whales lift their tails out of the water, as they are beginning a dive. I will never forget this! The blow is the exhaling and replenishment of oxygen through the blowhole and the spray can be seen from up to a mile away. I did get a lot of shots of the spray, and not so much of the whale itself. They don’t seem to come back to the top of the water when you think they should. You wait along time and as soon as you turn your back they surface. LOL There are so many kinds of birds; I can’t remember all of them. One of them is called the Rinoceros. Another one is the mew gulls. Hundreds of these birds can be seen on the side of the mountain nesting. They are happy until the Bald Eagle comes along and they go crazy screeching and flying everywhere in hopes to scare the eagle away. We did experience this as we were cruising by. Our Captain said we were so lucky to see a whale breech and a Bald Eagle stir these birds up. The Bald Eagle eats the eggs that they are nesting. Mean, Mean, Mean!!!
We moved onto Fox Island for dinner. On the way, we saw a few more Orcas and took more camera shots. You can only get to Fox Island by boat or float plane. They have a nice Lodge, beach and a few cabins for rent. We enjoyed Prime Rib, Grilled Salmon, Corn on the Cob, Salad, Desert and so on. They have more skipping stones than I have ever seen before, and mine didn’t do so well, it sank before it skipped. It was worth trying since I haven’t done that in many years. We’re back on the boat now and underway. I can see Seward and sorry that the 8 and ½ hour cruise is over. It’s one of the best things we have done and I’d go again in heart beat!! What an amazing trip. I can only hope that our girls, their spouses and our grandchildren can someday experience what we have experienced today. I know Mike and Rosemary, Uncle Clay and Aunt June have made this trip but you have to experienced it yourself to appreciate the beauty of it all. We are in the truck heading back to Soldotna and it will take us about two hours to get back. Hey, I might see a bear; after all, we are in bear country. /Marilyn
May 31, 2011- Tuesday – Just want you to know we didn’t see a bear, moose or and other wildlife on the way home. It was sprinkling this morning and we just took it easy today, sorting through our pictures. Between Dave and me, we took a little over 500 pictures. I love digital photography because you can delete the bad ones, and keep the good ones. We are sharing photos with Jerry and Reva and so we have many photographic memories.
Dave and Jerry are going salmon fishing this afternoon. Reva and I are going shopping. I love a quiet day. So glad to hear that our grandchildren are doing so well. Hannah graduated from the 5th grade and Holly hit a home run to win the game. I'm so proud of them. Plus Joh and Kelly drove 75 miles to go to the graduation. You all are awesome. I'm sorry we missed it./Marilyn
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