Sunday, June 24, 2012

Kenai Fjords Wildlife and Glacier tour

I have been slack on keeping everyone updated. I have been getting out and trying to explore AK. I have explore campbell creek, kincaid park, and thunderbird falls. For my birthday last weekend, I went out to dinner, went to 3-D blacklight minigolf, and then hung out with friends. So now that I got the condensed summary of everything now, I will get on with my main topic, the cruise.
I drove down to Seward. I left about 6am so there was not very many people on the road. The scenery was gorgeous. My favorite part was placing the random small waterfalls off of the moutians were the snow was melting down to the inlet. I also found a lake, that I think is Trail lake that I had to stop by on my way home and take pictures. I got to Seward in about 2 hours. I checked-in at the office and waited until the boat loaded about 9am. I got a few good pictures of the harbor of Seward.


We headed out about 930a. Before we made it completely out of the habor we saw a humpback whale.

       I was not able to get a really good picture of that whale because it was going in the opposite direction than we were. Then we continued on and not too long we saw a couple of sea otters

They did not stick around very long but I got a good picture of them. Soon after that we saw a mama and a baby humpback whale feeding so we stopped for a little while and watched them.




I got some good shots of them too. Then we went on to further down and we were joined with some dall's porpoises who saw right next to the boat



They have to same colorings as orcas(killer whales). They were really fun to watch. Then we passed by bear glacier. We then toured porcupine cove where we were able to view arbor seals.
                                                      

Then we passed pilot island.


Hologate glacier came next right before we entered into the Kenai Fjords, Fjord is as the captian explained is a bay that was created by a glacier and then was filled up by sea water



We passed a whole flock of sea otters as we entered in the fjords.


As we drove into the fjords, the tour provided us with lunch which was a delicous chicken ceaser salad wrap, carrots, and a nature valley bar. We headed for the aialik glacier which we came about 1/4 mile from. The captian explained that glacier was 1 mile wide at its base.











The crew fished out a piece of drifting ice(aka iceberg) to let us it up close. We head out of the fjords and passed secert window and three hole point.








The the captian got a call oer the radio  and we headed over to see some orcas. The captian said that is pretty hard to see orcas so I felt pretty luck to see them.



We made our way slowly to Fox Island, we passed one small set of sea lions, puffins, and then a larger set of sea lions hanging out. We watched as two sea lions were fighting and the small one got pushed off the rock, allowing the larger one to take his prized spot on the rock.






We docked at Fox Island where we were feed a buffet of salmon and prime rib for dinner. It was really good. We got to here a short presentation by Forest Ranger Jim about some of the history of Fox Island. It was really interesting.



We then headed back to Seward, but we made one more stop to look at a mama bald eagle wo has sitting in her nest with her two chicks.








We docked back in the harbor around 615p. I headed back home to Anchorage, but I did have to stop at what I believe is Trail lake and take a few pictures.






I got back around 9pm. It took me alittle longer to get back because there was more traffic and I made the one "photo" stop. I had a great time. I was a perfect day all around. Perfect weather, seas, everything.











1 comment:

  1. thanks for sharing, it looks like a blast, while we are stuck in boring 'ol Valdosta ;)

    ReplyDelete