All The Things

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The Kenai Fjords Glacier Tour was one of the first - and one of the most expensive - excursions that we had arranged for this trip, and it was easily one of the best. We were only minutes into the six hour tour of Seward's coves and islands when the captain announced that we had found our first whale. We headed to the deck just in time to see a Pacific humpback whale breach the surface just off the bow, only a few feet from where we were stood. There were two other humpbacks in the harbour and we spent at least half an hour watching them flash their tails and blow plumes of spray up into the air before heading out into the water.

It was a bright, sunny day and everything was crystal clear, giving us a great view of the surprising number of jellyfish in the bay. Their presence was explained by the captain, however, by the warm waters that reached Seward from Japan.

The first stop was at the Bull Glacier, the largest of the glaciers reaching the sea from the Harding Icefield. We then turned into the wind and spent a chilling two hours approaching the Aialik Glacier to watch it calf chunks of ice into the water.

We didn't see any orcas during the voyage, but we did get to see a pod of Dall Porpoises which are similar in colouring and absolutely beautiful. We were also lucky to see a whole family of Stellar sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks, a few lazy looking sea otters floating around on their backs with their paws in the air, a few tiny tufted puffins, an eagle and even some cormorants.

The cruise provided a lunch of a chicken caeser wrap, which was pretty chilly for a cold day, but on the way back we were given a warm chocolate cookie, which went a long way to returning the feeling to our extremities. It was a completely magical trip from start to finish and well worth the lingering cold, Daisy losing a glove in the wind and the horror story that happened to our normally luscious locks. It'll take some intensive conditioner and a few cups of coffee, but we should recover. The glove, however, is lost forever.

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