Alaska Chapter One -- Seward, Kenai Fjords

Dennis, Brian Wight, Dad and Scott


Humpback whale waving at us.


Orcas


On May 28, Dennis, my dad, my brother Scott and I left for a 7 night southbound Alaskan cruise. We flew to Anchorage, where our friend, Brian Wight met us at the airport. Brian took us to lunch, introduced us to his wife and drove us to Seward, where we spent the night. The weather was overcast and kind of drizzly, which was kind of what we expected for Alaska. Everything was beautiful though, just lush and green everywhere. Thursday night, we walked around a little, had dinner, and just relaxed.

Friday morning, we got up early and took a Kenai Fjords 6 hour boat tour. The weather was clear as a bell, not a cloud in the sky. Once the boat got going though, the wind was pretty cold. There was in inside observation area, but it was pretty crowded, so we just stood on the bow most of the time. Nothing like an icy wind in your face!! Everything was beautiful. We started out seeing sea otters and mountain goats. There were lots of birds, the puffins were a blast to watch "fly" on top of the water. We saw harbor seals, stellar sea lions and porpoises raced our boat.

We were looking for whales though. We pulled into a little cove and found ourselves in the middle of a pod of orcas!! It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. They were all around us, it was amazing! We also found some humpbacks that put on a show of breaching and fin slapping for us. It was breathtaking to watch those amazing animals. We also saw a fin whale. I'd never heard of it before, but I guess it's the largest whale in that area.

We went back to a glacier which was pretty cool. The water was so full of ice chunks, our little boat was swerving all over to avoid them. On the hill in that area was a black bear. It was cool to see him, but we were pretty far away.

After our tour, we met Brian again and checked in on our cruise ship. It was an amazing day! We weren't sure how the rest of the week was going to measure up to the first day, because it was practically perfect!