After a much needed ten hour’s sleep we awoke to find the rainy conditions continuing. With our travelling group now back together we drove down to the Seward docks and arranged for our Kenai Fjords full day boat cruise.
The boat we were on was owned by Major Marine Tours and called the ‘Alaska Explorer’. It could carry about 200 passengers but with the weather likely to be wet and foggy the boat was only two thirds full. We had reserved and very comfortable seating on the second deck with expansive window views all around.
The cruise was initially southwards down Resurrection Bay and past Cheval Island towards Aialik Cape. At this point we’d entered the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The sea was choppy with about two to three metre swells and several passengers around us were seasick. At this point we commenced a northwards leg up into Aialik Bay where conditions were much calmer and lunch was served.
The cruise then took us up into a fairly narrow arm where at the end we were confronted with the toe of Aialik
Steller sea lions, Resurrection Bay
View from campsite, Kenai
Horned puffins, Resurrection Bay
Thick-billed murres, Resurrection Bay
Waterfall, Resurrection Bay
Harbour seal, Resurrection Bay
Harbour, Seward
Sea otter, Resurrection Bay
Aialik iceberg, Resurrection Bay
Aialik iceberg, Resurrection Bay
Glacier. This is a large ‘tidewater’ glacier and we were able to get within 200 m and stop with the boat engines off for half an hour. The toe was about 500 m wide and terminates in the sea with a gigantic blue ice wall 100 m or more high. The incredible noise of the cracking ice and the occasional chunk of ice calving off and crashing into the sea made for spectacular viewing.
On our return leg to port, we followed a different course further to the east which took us past Cape Resurrection where a vast colony (millions) of presently nesting seabirds called thick-billed murres totally dominate the headland and the sky around.
We sighted many sea otters as they cruised around on their backs and then duck-dived chasing fish. We also managed to get close to a number of Steller sea lions and a smaller group of whitish Harbour seals.
A number of Dall’s porpoises and one humpback whale were seen too but the whale was moving quite quickly and surfaced only every minute or so and thus photos were far from perfect!
Bald eagles, glaucous gulls and Arctic terns are common in this area but in terms of sea-bird life, the undoubted highlight was seeing lots of the beautiful horned puffins. Some were swimming in the water around the boat but many were nesting on ledges in the high cliffs that make up these fjords.
On returning to dock we climbed into our bus and headed off on the Stirling Highway for Soldotna and then took the turnoff to the town of Kenai.
We set up our gypsy homes in a camping ground on The Bluff and enjoyed an evening meal in dry conditions and periods of sunshine.
Tomorrow we go bear watching.