June 9--Resurrection Bay and Kenia Fjords National Park

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Thursday June 9th

Drove a block to the harbor to board our boat that was piloted by a woman Captain. The tour guide was a National Park Ranger, who is a year round resident of Seward and, therefore, was quite knowledgeable of the area’s history and of the animals and wildlife of the Park. They handed us a very nice brochure and it listed the kinds of birds and animals we were likely to see. We had a GREAT time and saw this list of wild life:

• Black Bear—saw 5 of them on the hills as we boated by---one was crossing a snow patch and Valerie got a good picture of him.

• Mountain goat---saw and mother and her kid way up high on the rocky cliffs.

• Dall’s porpoise---a whole bunch of them played along the sides of the ship.

• Harbor seals—several of them played in the harbor in front of Rosie II.

• Humpback whale---saw at least 2 of them, but they are so quick it is hard to get a good picture of them.

• Killer whale or Orca—saw a pod of them, one had a calf by her side. They got really close to the boat and Valerie got some good photos.

• Sea otters---have seen lots and lots on this trip and others we have taken in Alaska—hard to resist their cuteness and take lots of photos.

• Steller sea lions---seem to be an endangered species and only a few were on a rocky point. We watched for a while as a big bull tried to intimidate the other seals around it.

• Bald eagles---we have seen so many we now say “ho hum, another eagle”.

• Black oystercatcher—neat, upright, large gull size, sea bird that is black with a bright red beak and legs.

• Common murre—look like miniature black and white penguins.

• Horned puffins---there are 3 kinds, Alaska has 2 of the 3.

• Tufted puffin—the 2nd kind.

We sailed out of Resurrection Bay and into the Gulf of Alaska and then up into Aialik Bay, which is one of the Fjords of the National Park. At the end of this bay we sailed extremely close to the Holgate glacier. They really are blue, blue in color. We watched it for about 20 minutes, but it didn’t calf. All around the boat were little mini-icebergs.

After we returned from the 7 and ½ hour trip, we had dinner and called it a night. It was a very good day!

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