July 25 and early July 26th

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Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be absolutely beautiful and according to the locals the first nice days this year! We had a really restful night despite not having much in the way of room darkening blinds...sunlight until midnight here!

Wednesday, July 25:

We set out mid-morning on our adventure aboard the Kenai Fjord Aialik Voyager. It is basically a cat-hull tour boat with inside and outside seating on 2 levels. Our 6 hour tour took us deep into the Kenai Fjords National Park. Not only was the weather beautiful, the waters of Resurrection Bay and the North Pacific were very calm. We did have some really spectacular fog that they call glacial fog. It hung low, above the water but below the snow covered peaks. It was fascinating.

This was an incredible adventure. We came across several Humpback whales, dall's porpoise, horned and tufted puffins, common murres and stellar sea lions. We also visited Holgate glacier, Surprise glacier and several smaller alpine glaciers.

We finished the day with a huge dinner at Ray's Waterfront. Dylin and Donna ate fresh Copper River salmon and I ate fresh Halibut which was all prepared perfectly!

Thursday, July 26:

This morning we headed to the Alaska Sealife Center at the other end of Seward. ASC is a research and rescue facility primarily for Stellar Sea Lions, Harbor seals and "Alcids" or birds who are indigenous to this area that are fishing birds (puffins, murres, kittywinks). We had reserved a behind the scenes tour to get up close and personal with the puffins. After touring the research area where they have nest boxes, we got to go inside the aviary/water habitat and hand feed the birds. There were a lot of tufted and horned puffins (my favorite) and several common murres that are referred to as the "penguins of the North".

We walked back to the other side of town along the Resurrection Bay and soaked in the beauty.

Tonight we will go out to the Seavey's Dog Sled village and meet the Iditarod sled dogs.

Enjoy the pictures and remember there are a lot more all the way at the bottom.

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Comments

[John]

Rubbing it in ...
Quit rubbing it in about the whales, already!! Really, I love seeing it. It's like you were presented with a smorgasboard of Alaska to choose from. Great choices!!!