Sunday, July 17, 2016

Seward, AK - Orcas & Otters and Glaciers, Oh, My

OK, over there, it’s an orca
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Hey, look, at 11:00, its a puffin.
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WOW, at 8:00, it’s a finback whale.
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Of course, we found an eagle beckoning us out into the ocean.
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And, that’s how the day went: out on a small cruise boat into Resurrection Bay and around Kenai Fjords National Park. 2 weeks ago I checked the weather for July 17 and found that today it was going to be sunny and warm and I booked an 8 1/2-hr tour, the longest we could find and the only one which didn’t stop in the middle for a prime rib/salmon buffet. I’d rather spend my time out on the bay looking at wildlife and all the beautiful glaciers in the area than sitting and eating a heavy lunch. Obviously others felt the same way and we had 25 on our boat, a small, one deck boat.
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We boarded at 8:30 and left the harbor at 9:00, heading out to sea. And, there were some otters right there in the harbor. The scenery our boat moved through was stunning. High snowy peaks, craggy rock cliffs, lush green hillsides, and blue ice glaciers.
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Our captain and his crew (Clint) scanned the horizon to spot sea life for us to view.
We saw orcas, killer whales. The story goes that Basque fishermen from Spain saw orcas that would attack whales and called them ‘ballena assisina’ or ‘whale killer’. Somehow in translation that became ‘killer whales’ and that is the name that stuck. In fact offshore orcas live in the ocean and they feed on big prey: sometimes whales and sharks. Orcas swim as a family surrounding the oldest female in the group. After a male orca mates, he leaves and returns to his mothers family. Real mama’s boys. We’ve been on whale watch tours before but have never seen an orca.
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We saw humpback whales, the most common whale seen on the cruises. They spend some of their time in Hawaii but most of their time is spent in Alaska. It takes them only 36 days to swim from Hawaii to Alaska. They spend most of their time up here in Alaska feeding to build up fat stores that they can sustain them over the winter. They can eat up to 3000 lbs of food a day. Boy, don’t I wish. We saw a mother and a baby. Babies at birth are about 15’ long and weigh about 2000 lbs. They nurse for about a year but take much longer to reach full adulthood.
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We saw harbor seals, resting on these small ice floes which come off of Northwestern Glacier, at the head of the small fjord we are on. They looked at us warily.
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We saw gulls nesting on the tiniest ledges and crags in a cliff but - they were away from predators and that was the goal.
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Horned puffins also nested on cliff sides to be safe from predators. They must have velcro to hold them on.
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But we also saw lots of glaciers. Here’s one that is quite active with the waterfall pouring water out.
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Everyone took their place in the prow of the boat for a picture. It’s difficult to see in this picture, but there is black tape on the railing on either side of Gary’s head. This tape extended for about 3’ along the railing. This is where no one could stand when we were in a section of the fjord where there were lots of ice bergs since, if someone stood there the captain could not see where to go. Many of the ice bergs had harbor seals resting on them and some were big and could damage the boat.
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You can see some of these ice floes in the pictures of the harbor seals.
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The top of this glacier glistened in the sun.
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We saw sea lions who had hauled out onto this rocky ledge.
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And purple stars clinging to the cliff long after the tide had left them stranded.
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We felt the salt spray and the boat plunged into a wave, we rocked and rolled as the boat motored down the coast, we peered into caves to see birds nesting in the crags, we got out our binoculars to peer at orcas feeding in the ocean, we felt the wind as it ruffled our hair and we oohed and aahed over all the many sights that we saw.
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It was a marvelous day out in the bay. But, now it’s over and we’re heading back to Seward - along with everyone else.
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Then, in a final sight, I saw an otter lying on its back eating a fish morsel in its hands. The sun was just right, the boat was tied motionless to the pier and I had the otter in my sights. Only two of us saw this and we knew we had seen something pretty cool. Awesome.
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