RVing in Alaska--Day 6-- A Cruise in the Kenai Fjords

Seward Public Library and Museum

What happened to day 5, you ask? Sparky forgot to allow some traveling time in there somewhere and forgot to take enough notes to refresh her memory about all the cool stuff we did in that lost day. Probably a combination of traveling and stopping to see things along the way.. At any rate, we spent two nights in Seward, but recommend staying longer. It's one of the nicer towns that we've seen. We've been to Ketchikan, Juno, Whittier and Skagway as far a cruise ports and docking for the day or for half a day, but Seward really has a lot going on for it. Lots of action at the docks, some nice stores, some great restaurants, the RV park by the bay, The SeaLife Museum, over a dozen beautiful murals all around town, all the wildlife, the hiking, just a really great destination, in our humble opinion.

A harlequin duck at Resurrection Bay

Not remembering exactly the sequence of events and leaving out a few things comes with getting older, we guess. That's what happens when you don't blog immediately upon returning from a cool trip! Life gets in the way! The main thing is, this was an AMAZING trip! There were so many more photos that Sparky wanted to publish, but felt like the essence of the trip could still be shared despite paring the photos down to a manageable number. So here goes some info about the Kenai Fjords cruise we took while we were there, a HIGHLY recommended cruise and with excellent reviews on the internet...We booked for 10% off through the Seward Visitor's Center a few days beforehand...The company was Major Marine, out of Seward....and the ship was a nice, stable catamaran. The days leading up to the cruise had been rainy and windy and not too nice, but we checked the weather ahead of time, and picked a great day to go---sunny and calm!

There are SIX tours you can sign up for....The web link provided above gives the breakdown for what you get for each scheduled tour. Sparky was in for the 7.5 hour cruise as soon as she heard "all the prime rib you can eat"! :-) We liked the idea of the 7.5 hour cruise giving the captain plenty of time to find wildlife, if Mother Nature wasn't cooperating. It leaves at 10:00 in the morning, and you are back by 5:30 PM. You also get up close to TWO glaciers, Holgate and Aialik. It's 189.00 a person WITH the all you can eat buffet which also included Alaskan salmon. An onboard National Park ranger narrates and they are 99% of the time always knowledgable and wonderful with their information. And, they provide free binoculars! So, off we went! Captain Josh was hilarious....He gave us some advice about seasickness.

1) Don't head for the bathroom. It's the "Room of Doom". No windows makes it worse.
2) If you are on the third deck, remember there are people below you. Aim far.

It was just fabulous! We saw a stellar sea lion being born, no kidding! We were watching the sea lions lazily bathe on the rocks, when Sparky saw something black and slithery and what looked like blood on the rocks beside the sea lion. The park ranger, Lynn, was checking the scene and announced that the mother was having the baby, right then and there! Holy cow! (heheheh, isn't a female sea lion a cow? wonder Eldo and Sparky).  Yep, that's what it was...an endangered sea lion giving birth...the ranger was almost speechless....

We saw SEVEN orcas......They are very chatty, by the way, lots of clicks and whistles talking to each other....

Sea otters rolling around and having fun....

SEVEN humpbacks.....And one of the humpbacks was doing fin slaps and playing and just messing around for quite some time near us.....That fin was just waving and waving and spinning all around at us. We were laughing....

And then he breeched! And of course, Sparky missed it, trying to get from the back of the boat to the 1:00 position at the front of the boat...She got part of it as he was coming back down....

We saw puffins from afar and HUNDREDS of them circling the skies above a rock island..So hard to get a photo of a puffin, they are little bitty guys, about 12" tall. We saw quite a few bald eagles, too.....

And the TWO glaciers, one was over 750 feet tall....AMAZING! See the little sightseeing boat down in the front? It gives you just a little perspective at how massive the glacier is....even if it is shrinking...

Sparky got to experience a glacial margarita....The crew scooped up a big chunk of glacial ice bobbing around in the sea, after we visited one of the glaciers, rinsed it off and started chipping away to make ice cubes for the margaritas. The ranger said it was probably 200 year old ice. And it took FOREVER to melt and was amazingly sparkly and crystal clear. It was cool! Really!

And if you are thinking, yeah, we'd go on that cruise and probably not see anything, we doubt that would happen. Everybody we've heard that has taken this cruise has seen lots of wildlife, because it's Alaska, and this is the place to see wildlife! And when you are out at sea for that length of time, your chances are EXCELLENT! The Kenai Fjords cruise rocks! But not on a calm day, tee hee, hee....

It was a wonderful day in the Kenai Fjords.....And soon, our trip was ending...As a matter of fact, we have to leave Alaska to head home on day 8....But there's still more to see and tell....Bye for now.....