Sea Lions, Whales and Puffins - Oh My!

 Arriving in Seward, Alaska, at 11:20, we were safely ensconced on the mighty ship, the Callisto Voyager for the Kenai Fjords National Park tour at 11:30. I was glad to hear it was a six hour boat ride. I get a little nervous when it is a three hour tour (Gilligan's Island reference for you younger readers). We are off to see a tidewater glacier and maybe, just maybe, whales! 

Leaving the Seward harbor

We cruise out into Resurrection Bay and head south. We make a stop to see actual puffins, a little tiny cliff dwelling bird which happens to be in the running for cutest bird ever. They spend most of their lives at sea and only come back to land for their parenting duties. We saw puffins, but they were all flying, they were way too quick for me to get a picture.

See the puffins?  Me neither.

We motored on to see Holgate Glacier. Holgate Glacier is one of the smaller glaciers that outflows from the Harding Icefield. The Harding Icefield covers over 700 square miles covering the Kenai mountain. In other words, it is huge. Holgate Glacier flows outward right into the bay.

Holgate Glacier
Glacier ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice
and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The farther the light travels in ice, the more blue it appears.   

On our way back to Seward, we finally see whales. First up was a humpback whale, off in the distance. This humpback showed us his tail as he dove. Classic. A pod of orcas showed up. There were probably about six or seven of them. I have discovered that whale watching is a lot of scanning the water's surface and then when you finally see one, get your camera ready but it will be too late because the whale has already disappeared into the deep. Eventually, I just watched and forgot about the pictures. Anika, on the other hand, took videos and was able to capture them forever.

We saw otters floating on their backs, sea lions basking in the sun – all in all, a very satisfying day.

We stayed at the Windsong Lodge which was nestled in the woods and had great mountain views. This was the first time that we actually stepped on Alaskan soil. Everyplace that we had been up to this time was concrete, asphalt or boat deck. It took us almost twenty-four hours being in Alaska before we touched real Alaska ground.