Boat trip up Kenai Fjord

For this boat trip, the weather was better.




Our boat is a catamaran.


Enlarge to see the sailboat with a red sail. The mountains look even bigger when you compare to the boat size.


Our first wildlife of the boat trip today. Puffins. There were literally thousands of them.


A beaver.


The glacier is a river of ice on it's way to the ocean.


WOW! 2 humpback whales.


That's one big whale!


After this dive, we didn't see them again. We think there were three of them. I have MANY MANY more pictures of them.. :-)


Stellar sea lions basking in the sun. Their noisy barks were amusing.






Rookery of red and black footed kittiwicks, and horned and tufted puffins.


Nesting puffins.


Red-footed kittiwick with his fish.


Nesting Kittiwicks.


Puffin.


Two cormorants flying and puffins are there too.


Puffins on cliff.


Arriving at the glacier.


Up close to the glacier. Let's see some breaking off...


No such luck... But they are SOO impressive!


A different glacier on the way home.


More sea otters. They are so cute just floating there in the middle of the ocean!


What a beautiful day!


Just a couple of harbor seals on the rocks.


What a wonderful day aboard this boat. We left at about 3:00pm and returned at about 9:30pm. We had been served a soup lunch and either chicken or salmon for dinner. The animals I didn't manage to get a picture of were the 3 Dall porpoises, black bear and 2 bald eagles.

Traveling down Turnagain Arm again

Our next stop was Seward, AK.


A Hump?? Well, I guess it is... The name for a Rotary up there is a Round-About.




There's the train tracks we were on before. Beautiful sky.




Beautiful ride.








When your truck doesn't work anymore, just leave it there, and look what happens.




On the way to Seward, we stopped at Portage Glacier, which we couldn't see because it had retreated around the edge of a mountain. We watched a movie about glaciers. We could see Burns Glacier across the lake. We learned about ice worms here..they do live in the ice! They are very small. This area is part of the Chugach National Forest.


This is the Explorer Glacier. It is a hanging glacier.


Driving around Seward we found this waterfall.


On the other side of the road, the river drained into the ocean. See the fishermen?

What a way to travel!

This bus was parked near us in the campground in Anchorage. It's a German made vehicle. There were 2 drivers, workers? Rick talked to them and they said they usually tour Germans. About a dozen people. There are seats in the front and, yes, that's the beds in the back. We didn't get to see inside...would have been interesting. The men also did a lot of cooking for the group. It had Alaska plates.

Glaciers in Prince William Sound

On one of the rainiest days of the whole trip, after the train to Whittier, we boarded a boat to go and view the glaciers.




Here we go...


I think that's a high hill going into the water.


I think I see a mountain with snow and waterfall through the misty rain.


Wildlife: our first sea otters just floating there watching us.


Our first tidewater glacier only calved one very small piece of ice. We stayed here probably about 20 minutes watching for more...in the rain.



It was quite wide and we were about 1/4 mile away.


The glaciers were a beautiful blue. They were quite noisy with all the cracking that they did.


As we left the glacier, we could see how immense it really is.


On the way to the second glacier we passed the rookery of black footed kittiwakes.







The second glacier.




There were very many waterfalls from the glacial melt.


Leaving the glacier.


Through the window you can see a hanging glacier.


On the return trip there was a second rookery and more waterfalls.



Anchorage train station.


Our train.


Cute.