Monday June 27 Kenai Fjords National Park boat trip

We had breakfast in our room this morning: yogurt, strawberries and granola.

Today we are going on a 9 hour boat tour to the Northwest Fjord, one of the arms of the Gulf of Alaska.   The is the main way to see Kenai Fjords National Park. We checked in at 8AM as directed.  They told us where to park and that they had a shuttle to bring people back.  Jim said that since it is only 3 or 4 blocks away, he would walk.  When he parked the car, the shuttle stopped directly in front of him as he exited the car, so he felt compelled to ride. We boarded the Kenai Explorer at 8:30 and took off at 9.

Captain Bob introduced himself over the PA system and did a wonderful commentary throughout that trip, but we never saw him because he was in the cockpit.  As we were leaving the dock, he explained that most of the boats nearby are fishing boats and that Seward is 3^rd largest fishing port in Alaska.

It was a chilly, overcast day with calm seas.  Captain Bob says that should be good for finding wildlife.  That was the prime reason we took the 9 hour cruise over the 3, 6 or 7 hour versions.  It seemed to have more of an emphasis on that over scenery, even though it cost proportionately more.

We made a brief stop at Fox Island to drop off about a dozen passengers who were going to spend the next night there.  This made the size of the crowd on our boat “just right” for us.  It was lightly loaded, so the company didn’t make a ton of money.

Jim tossed out a lot of the photos he attempted today.  Between the rolling of the boat, moving subjects and somewhat low light, it was incredible that any turned out.

They gave us a checklist of animals we might see on the trip and we saw most of the major ones.  Below are the ones we saw with pictures where they turned out well.

Steller Sea Lion:  A very huge animal that is highly endangered, having lost 80% of its population in the last 30 years.

Sea Otter: The smallest marine mammal and probably the cutest.  It is also endangered.  This mommy had a baby on her belly.

Harbor Seal: These look like smaller versions of the steller sea lion at first glance, but they lack ear flaps. The raise their young on ice floes to minimize danger from predators.

Cormorant: Captain Bob pointed out different species of these, but we couldn’t tell the difference. 

Jim saw a piece of ice floating along that reminded him of a swimming cormorant.

Bald Eagle: “Eagles mate for life, like humans used to”.  This pair obviously thinks they are number one.  

Just a short distance from a cliff densely populated with birds, another cliff face was devoid of anything except an eagle high in a tree.  Captain Bob said that if eagles don’t find fish, they turn to smaller birds, so many birds stay away from eagle’s nests.

Common Murre: we saw hundreds of these birds in colonies on cliffs.  You can see that there are no nests.  They just lay their eggs on bare rock.  It is the deepest diving sea bird – one was caught in a crab pot 640 feet deep!

Other birds we saw included Thick-billed Murre, Kittlitz’s Murrelets, Black Oystercatcher, Tufted Puffins, and Black Legged Kittiwake.

Dall’s Porpoises followed the boat for a while, playfully leaping around the boat, so playful that pictures only showed tiny pieces of body parts.

The big attraction was the Humpback Whale.  We saw these magnificent creatures several times.  You could see the spray from their blow a long distance away.  Jim was able to get a nice shot video of them surfacing and diving.  He will attempt to upload that, but failed in a previous attempt to put a video in this blog.

Along the way, Captain Bob pointed out some glaciers. 

The farthest point of our boat trip was the Northwest Glacier.  He explained that this glacier is more active than others.  We sat idling for about 5 minutes, then there was a loud boom and ice began crumbling from the top.  Jim was ready with his camera and pressed the button to start a video.  He was wearing gloves and the button didn’t go in.  He recovered and got video of the river of ice pouring to the water below.  This might also get attached to the blog at a later point in time. 

The “calving” operation lasted about 10 minutes.  Quite thrilling.

Captain Bob took us to a place where you can see 5 glaciers at once.  Jim was outside and didn’t hear that and only focused on the side of the boat where three were quite close together.

We also went to a place called Cascade Canyon where perhaps a dozen waterfalls are pouring down a long cliff face.

There were so many beautiful rock formations that Jim’s camera trigger finger got weary :-)

The crew included two recent college grad females who were quite attentive to the passengers and hard working.  One wants to check Jim’s map catalog online.  The other currently has no job prospects after the summer.  Her previous employer went out of business.  Jim will try to link her up with Watermark Tours in Annapolis for a possible fall job.

A breakfast snack was served shortly after we got underway. It included fresh-from-the oven cinnamon rolls, fruit cups and juice.  Coffee and tea were available throughout the trip. Lunch included chicken Caesar wraps, granola bars and carrots.  Warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies were provided for a late afternoon snack.

We ate dinner at the Apollo Greek – Italian restaurant.  Jim had Moysaka (that’s how it is spelled on the menu).  Ardith had veal parmesan with penne pasta and alfredo sauce.

As we walked back to the car Jim noticed a sock pinned up to the community bulletin board.

Power to Seward had been out earlier in the day.  We saw a sign in one shop that it had closed for that reason.  The alarm clock was flashing in our room.  Our internet connection was not working.  Jim went to the desk and was told the router reboots automatically a bit after midnight, and the staff was not allowed to do it manually.  It wasn’t restored until after 9 the next morning.