Sue & Paul's Alaska Travel Adventure
Day 10, A perfect day for a wildlife cruise in Seward  (5/23)
This was a fantastic day.  Yesterday the weather was marginal all day, but today the weather was beautiful.  We went on a wildlife cruise into the Kenai Fjords National Park.  We will remember this adventure forever, it was perfect.  Most everybody who takes a cruise goes with Kenai Fjords Tours. They have a fleet of conventional boats.  We heard about Wildlife Quest and their 'comfort' catamaran.  The staff was cheerful, friendly, and knowledgeable.  The boat was faster with a steadier ride than a conventional boat, and drew only about 2 feet of water with jet drive. We were able to get into shallow coves and ice flows.  We left the dock at 11:15 and returned at about 5:45.
Now every trip is different and your results may vary.  The boat was built for about 100 people; today we had only about 30.  They provided snacks, lunch and complimentary apples, soda, hot chocolate, and juice.  It was a two level boat with a glass enclosed lower deck and an upper deck that was half enclosed and half open. When the boat was moving, most folks were indoors.  When it stopped, we moved out onto the open upper deck.  The entire focus of the cruise was to educate the public to the natural wonders of the Kenai Fjords Park.  We visited locations that allowed us to get close to wildlife.  Along the way the naturalist pointed out mountain formations, glaciers, and any wildlife.  We saw tons of Puffins, sea otters, sea lions, seals, just to name a few.  The midpoint stop was at a glacier which was an active glacier, meaning it was dumping large chunks of ice into the ocean, termed calving. 
We made our way through all the floating ice to within a 1/4 mile of the glacier face.  We stayed there long enough to listen and experience the glacier's sounds and sights.  The photos we’re taking won't convey the scope of the experience.  We left the glacier and visited more puffins and sea lions.  Just when we were outside the harbor, we started seeing Killer whales and saw as many as 50 members in a pod.  They were in groups of 4 to 6.  They were flapping their tails, breaching, swimming and breathing as a unit.  The Captain respected the whales’ space.  He lowered a hydrophone and we listened to the whales talking to each other.  It was great to see these mammals swimming in the wild.  The Captain turned off the engines and we drifted for about a half hour.  After we saw the whales and were entering the harbor, they served smoked salmon on crackers.  The perfect end to a perfect cruise.  After the cruise, we ate fish (halibut and salmon) & chips (potatoes) for dinner at "Smok'n Alaska" in Seward. 
Next page
Return to Index