Alaska - Day 5 - Beautiful Day at Sea with Whales and Orcas and Porpoises and Glaciers and . . .

We woke at our camp site on the lake at Moose Pass this morning, rested and refreshed. It's another beautiful day, without a ripple of movement on the lake right in front of the van.

Because of the great forecasted weather, we picked this day to head towards Seward, Alaska, just 34 miles straight south on the Seward Highway. We made our first stop at the Benny Benson Memorial Park in Seward. Thirteen-year-old Benny is most famous for winning the contest to design the Alaska Territory flag back in 1927. The same design became the Alaska state flag when it became our 49th state in 1959.

We thought the park was also a great place to park our van during our six-hour cruise with Major Marine tours in Seward. That definitely was cheaper than the $10 parking across the street. We checked out our boat in the marina when we arrived this morning.

We thought we were dressed too warmly, as we walked along the boardwalk by the water. We chose this day for a boat ride because of the forecast high of 64 degrees and sunny. Perfect weather!

Seward is a lovely little tourist town sitting right on the water and surrounded by mountains.

We visited the national park office in town, even though it is still closed for the winter. But the topographic map outside gives a nice view of where we are and where we are visiting today. We are at the "you are here" visitor center right on the large inlet of water called Resurrection Bay. The entire map shown is the Kenai Fjords National Park. Because "fjord" isn't a word we use every day, we looked it up. A fjord is a long, narrow, inlet of the sea between high cliffs, formed by glaciers. We will be cruising the fjords around Seward that we see on this map.

We chose the six-hour tour to see glaciers and fjords, but it also goes to areas famous for their marine wildlife. We took off right at 11:00, leaving the Seward Harbor behind us.

Everyone was finding seats on the front or back of the boat, enjoying the beautiful weather as we left.

We weren't even out of Resurrection Bay when we saw our first wildlife sighting. That is a huge flipper waving to us this morning!

We were lucky to see the entire nose out of the water of our first humpback whale of the day!

We can tell this is going to be a great cruise!

Whales have been hanging out in Resurrection Bay for the past week, and you could probably see this one from the town of Seward too.

We picked up speed as we left the bay, and we also added layers of our clothes as we stayed outside on the deck.

It seemed silly to bring our biggest coat and ear muffs and gloves this morning, but we were very glad to have them now. With the lowering temperatures, we also noticed low-hanging clouds draped over the mountains ahead.

Normally, our boat would have turned into Humpy Bay, but the entrance seemed to be closed right now.

Our boat captain announced that mariners call our present weather "pea soup," so it was difficult to spot animals.

Almost everyone returned to their assigned seats and tables inside during the cloudy section of the cruise. It was already noon, and lunch was served. We had a roast beef sandwich and a salmon spread sandwich, along with chips, apples, and brownies. It was a hardy lunch that came with the price of the cruise, and we snacked on it all day.

We didn't spend much time inside, but we were surprised at how many people spent most of the six hours at their tables. Those people missed the sea otters outside. 

While the captain sped by most of them, he stopped long enough for this guy to pose for pictures. They are quite possibly the cutest sea creatures ever!

Because we were often already outside, we usually got front row seats to the next wildlife encounter. You can see Denisa's white head at the front rail, with camera poised in the picture below. Even if we were inside, we learned that if the captain slowed the boat, it was time to get outside quickly for the best sightings.

That sighting could be of another humpback whale. We have been on several whale cruises, and we already knew that one of the best ways to find whales is to watch for spouts of water at the surface of the water.

Then you might be lucky enough to see a part of the whale's body break the surface of the water in that area.

While they might stay close to the surface for a few minutes, when you see the tale above water you know they are diving deep and that would be the last you saw of that whale for a while.

The captain of our boat knew where a pod of orcas usually hangs out, and that was our next destination. Seeing a fin break the surface is a good sign!

We learned that focusing the camera on that dorsal fin would soon mean that you would be rewarded . . .

with the best view of the orca as it rolled to the top of the water. Also known as killer whales, this group of ten often hunt together.

The boat crew knows that this pod is quite social with the passing tour boats. The crew members know all of these whales' names, as well as their personalities, since they see them in action every day.

There was another boat in our area, getting a close-up show of a passing orca.

We are once again enjoying blue skies, as our boat sped toward our glacier destination today.

As we got closer to Holgate Glacier, the water was littered with more and more ice.

The crew scooped out pieces of glacial ice for the passengers to experience first-hand.

Another way to experience this ice was in the glacier margaritas served at the boat's bar. This ice could have been formed from snow that fell hundreds of years ago.

While our captain stayed a half-mile away from the glacier because of the ice in the water and the danger of ice calving off the glacier, some boats got quite close. In the picture below, you can see another boat closer. That gives some scale to the size of that wall of ice.

That is not a small boat, even though it looked quite small against the glacier.

We stayed in the area for twenty minutes, as our boat rotated a full circle so that everyone could see the glacier.

We saw it calve twice when we first arrived. You see the movement of the ice falling into the water first, and then the sound of the crack and splash as sound travels slower. We could also see the blue veins of glacier ice when we zoomed in with the camera.

It wasn't long after leaving Holgate Glacier behind that we found a pod of Dall Porpoises. These are the fastest of the marine animals that we would see, and they loved swimming in the water right in front of our boat. Actually, the best pictures could be taken as they swam right below the water.

We found that when they jumped out of the water, the splash made it harder for the camera to actually picture their long black and white bodies.

We had one or two Dall porpoises in front of us continually for close to 15 minutes. Then our captain continued to speed up until he finally outran these fast swimmers. What an experience to get to watch more of God's wonders for such a long time!

We had another humpback whale sighting, and everyone on the deck has their cameras pointed toward it. That is everyone except Denisa, who is taking a picture in another direction.

That's because she is more interested in the small group of puffins that are swimming closer to our boat.

They are not very clear, but it was high on her bucket list to see puffins today!

Now we are cruising Aialik Bay at the far point of our cruise. We were outside in a hurry when we heard the boat motors slow as we approached this eerily cloudy rock formation.

We came to a stop in front of the closest rocks where a group of sea lions were lounging.

This big boy was barking orders from the top, but he seemed to be the only one that moved a muscle when we were watching.

What a beautiful place to nap the day away!

During the entire boat cruise, we got the distinct impression that the captain had to stay on schedule, and that it was important to get us back to the port in six hours. So when we spotted more humpback whales, we didn't spend much time with them. We would spot a total of five today as the humpbacks have definitely arrived for the summer.

We got back to the harbor right at 5:00 p.m., and we had a great ride! We would recommend Major Marine to others visiting this area. The narration from the captain was hard to understand many times, but with the wonderful cooperation of the weather and the wildlife it was an awesome day at sea!