Seward, AK
Originally uploaded by Bendini
On Friday morning, our group drove to Seward, Alaska for our final R&R trip. Seward is a small tourist town (used to be much smaller) that sits along Resurrection Bay and the Kenai Fjords area. The town is only about 6 streets deep, with a harbor/pier for boats and a few souvenir shops and bars downtown. Our planned trip was to go on the Kenai Fjords dinner cruise, a 6-hour tour of the bay/ocean and see some of the nature and wildlife.
The local Methodist church downtown was nice enough to let us stay in their church that night so we wouldn't have to drive another 2.5 hours back to Anchorage.
Before the tour, we were able to grab some lunch downtown and check out some of the shops. A few of us went to a small restaurant called Yoky's, where we enjoyed their Alaskan Clam chowder and bread. At 3PM, we met at the E dock to board our boat.
The boat itself was probably about 90', with three levels to sit/stand. We chose to take half of the bottom deck, as some were concerned about seasickness and getting a little dizzy. As the boat took off from the port, we had no idea what we were in for.
Once we got past Fox Island, the skies cleared up and the Pacific Ocean swells started to come in. Standing out on deck, it was no problem, but inside the cabin was a bit disorienting. We were only a minute or two out before we saw our first wild animal: a sea otter, floating on its back, eating some sort of fish. All of the tourists shoved to one side of the boat to snap photos. Once we got into the ocean, the wildlife started to increase; three humpback whales within a cove, horned and tufted puffins all over the place, stellar sea lions along the rocks of a fjord... all before dinner. It was amazing to see the humpbacks in the water; Lena was looking forward to seeing humpback whales her entire life. Puffins are much smaller than they look in pictures, but they're definitely high in numbers. The sea lions are pretty calm, chiling on rocks and barking every now and then.
Dinner was, of course, salmon... with wild rice, corn, and salad. As we were eating, the boat pulled up onto this massive ice wall, right on the edge of Harding Ice Field, that was nearly 300 feet tall. Ice chunks were floating by us over a mile from the glacier. As I went out on the deck to take pictures, I could hear these loud sounds - the ice was cracking on top. We didn't get to see any ice sheets fall, but we were able to hear it (and feel the coldness of it where we were).
Pulling away from the glacier, Dahl porpoises started swarming underneath the boat, flying by at fast speeds. Dahl porpoises are often mistaken for baby orcas because of their black color on top and white on bottom, but they're about the normal size of a porpoise. People started going out on deck just to cheer them along. They played around the sides of the boat for about 10 minutes before retreating.
The last treat of the night before heading back into Seward was another set of humpback whales near the Bear Glacier, which dove deep enough to let us see their tails out of the water. What an amazing sight to see these creatures.
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