Seward

We parked the RV and started walking up the path towards the glacier. We turned around and headed back when we realized we forgot our film and monopods. Our second outing was a success and we reached the edge of the glacier.

Exit Glacier empties onto land. There is no seawater eating away at its underside, so there is almost no calving. Just a slow, consistant melt that creates a frigid river leading away from the glacier. Since there is almost no calving, you can get really close to the glacier. A trail leads upwards and against the side of the glacier, and there are points on that trail where you can actually touch it.

By the time we got down from that trail the clouds were disipating. We headed back to the RV on an alternate trail which wound through the forest towards the ranger station. In this picture the sun is finally illuminating the glacier and you can get a good idea of the size if you notice the people in front.

The path through the woods was really pretty. From just ahead Kelly heard a snap. "There's something up there," she said with a reserved tone. We took a few more steps and watched a black bear pop out of the woods and on to the path about 30 feet in front of us. My stomach sank a bit and we tried escape plan A -- keeping an eye on the bear at all times, walk quickly backwards.

You know those awful B-movies where a monster is chasing some hapless soul and the guy trips over something obvious and you sit there thinking to yourself, what an idiot? That happened to me. In my nervousness to back away safely I tripped over a root. I got up quickly and resumed my regression, but I couldn't help thinking about those movies -- I wanted to appologize to all the vicitms for laughing at them. Kelly was busy trying to get her camera out and take a picture of the bear, but I convinced her that it was more important to get out of there alive than to have your last picture be of a black bear.

Bears are curious animals with poor eyesight. You never run away from a bear because they think you are prey and will easily hunt you down. Instead you back away slowly and/or wave your arms making lots of noise appearing like a real big scary human that doesn't taste good at all. Backing away worked for us. The path meandered through the forest such that we were soon out of his eyesight and out of his curiosity realm.

When we were out of his site we turned around and started walking forwards again. We happened upon a few couples who were trying the same path to the ranger station and easily convinced them that they should turn around, too. We went all the way back to the glacier and found the original path back to the RV. We passed a ranger who was talking to somebody on his radio about a bear in the woods and we relayed our story to him and the few others who happened to be around. We made it to the rangers station from the other side and it was closed anyway.

Kelly was disappointed that we didn't get a picture of the bear, and I was happy that we were alive to complain about that. We got back in the RV and headed for Seward.

Seward is a neat little town at the edge of a bay. The waters were calm and the houses picturesque. The end of the road forks either direction along the bay. A sign pointed us to the right away from the city where there was an RV park. Let's explore!

The road to the RV park had more potholes than (fill in your favorite pothole joke here). There was no driving on the right-hand side, you drove wherever the potholes were the least severe. It took about 15 minutes to go 2 miles. There was a terrible CLUNK against the RV and we wondered if a falling rock hit us. Despite the terrible arduous journey, we were rewarded at the end of the road.

The RV park was empty save for 3 other RVs. It was situated on the calm bay. They had showers, full hookup, and an amazing view. There were a few private residences off to the side. Many tree stumps littered the beach. Apparently they were relics from an earthquake-induced tidal wave. As we were eating dinner (at 10:00p) I saw a large bird fly by. "Kelly, I think that was an eagle." Later it flew by again, and I was sure it was an eagle. We collected our cameras and to our amazement the bald eagle was perched atop a pine tree right by our RV. Everyone in the RV park was watching it.

We snapped away despite the low light. I include this picture to demonstrate why you should use manual focus for important zoom shots of wildlife. The eagle flew down the private road near one of the residences. As we were debating whether to ignore the "please don't trespass on our private road" sign, a woman approached.

She was the owner of a bed and breakfast down the private road. She invited us down to her residence to get a better picture. We eagerly accepted the invitation. She explained that eagles liked to sit in the same trees on the same branches. This one usually showed up in the early morning and parked himself on a dead branch immediately outside her second story window. She recommended that we get up early and if the bird was indeed there, we could again visit and get some even better shots. Cool!

The next morning we got up early. No eagles, so we took our showers. When we were done with breakfast Kelly spotted one flying in. It flew right at her, right above her, and then off into the same tree was saw it in last night, but she couldn't get her camera going in time to capture the approach. We got some great shots in the morning light before he flew away. Never flew to the bed and breakfast, but we felt quite fortunate nonetheless. We checked out the RV to see if we could see any damage from the CLUNK the night before, but we didn't see anything. Weird.

We got in the RV and headed into town. We parked, got our boat tickets and were allowed to board immediately. The boat was leaving in 10 minutes and there were almost no passengers on board. This was awesome! No crowds whatsoever meant a cozy boat ride without any jockeying for prime camera position. The boat probably coul have held 150 people, and we wondered if we were really that early in the season or if tourism was down this year because of the steep gas prices.

Captain Bob gave us the rules of the boat and no sooner did we leave the harbor than we approached a couple of sea otters. He shut down the engines and let the boat drift slowly towards them. The otters were mostly unfased and 15 pictures later we were ready to reembark. Gees, I hope we brought enough film.

The boat stopped at Fox Island to let off a few passengers. Their tour involved a barbecue on the island and some se kayaking. On our way out of the Fox Island harbor Captain Bob pointed out some orange and purple jellyfish. Wow, we're scoring pretty well on the wildlife so far. Soon afterwards I pointed out a bald eagle perched in a pine tree on the island. I was getting quite good at spotting them.

We headed for open water and one of the boat staff spotted a whale spout. The captain turned the ship around and approached a scattered family of killer whale. All Kelly wanted to see on the whole trip was a whale, and here she got her wish. She was really excited, as was I since neither if us had ever seen one in the wild before.

The staff lady gave us some facts about the killer whales. There were two types -- fish eaters and mammal eaters, and the DNA of the two types was quite different. Orca children always stay with their mother no matter how old they are. Occasionally a male will wander off to mate with a female from another pod. Scientists consider a whale deceased if it does not return to its mother's pod within 6 months.

As we approached another island it was my turn to spot a whale spout. The captain eased the boat in the proper direction and the staff lady excitedly identified a pair of gray whales. This was considered rare because gray whales were supposed to have migrated south a month ago. She noted that the whales appeared healthy and that they were unconcerned with the boat since they were not taking advantage of their ability to conceal their blows.

While the tour was concentrating on the gray whales, she spotted a pair of humback whales off the left side of the boat. We didn't know which way to look, the animals were surrounding the boat. Then a huge BOOM broke the relative quiet of the sea. She speculated that a rockslide had just happened. Wow, this was a lot of activity.

There were a pair of humpback whales. The staff lady speculated that it was a pair of females that were consoling each other on the loss of a calf. I have no idea where she came up with that, but she sure sounded convincing. Humpbacks arch their backs out of the water a few times to breathe. Then they give a final super-arch before they dive for food. Their tales, or flukes, come out of the water on these dives.

Captain Bob motored the boat between a couple of islands. I spotted another eagle, this time flying right over us. Everyone was really enjoying all of the animals. At the edge of the islands were some stellar sea lions, a species that was fast becoming extinct for unexplained reasons.

We rounded the corner to find more humpback whales feeding in a small bay while puffins flew overhead. By this time we were past lunchtime, but nobody cared. The wildlife cruise was surpassing expectations, especially when our friends had told us before in Anchorage that on their cruise they thought they might have seen a whale fin.

Everyone got their lunch as the boat headed up an inlet towards Northwestern Glacier. If an Alaskan glacier seems to be named after a college, it was. All the reasearchers who arrived early enough to name the glaciers they were researching named them after the colleges that were paying for their trips.

The water was particularly still in this bay. Lots of bergy bits slowed our progress, but the reflection of the mountains in the glass-like sea made up for it.

We passed an eagle who was perched on an iceberg, something Captain Bob said was a rarety, but something that a man in the Seward RV park said he saw just the day before on his ferry ride from Valdez to Whittier. So I don't know how rare it really is. Maybe his feet were hot and he needed to cool them off.

Little black dots adorned a few of the more distant icebergs. Through the zoom lens we could see they were actually seals. They were all relaxing on the ice, protected from the predator orcas here in this shallow bay. Quite skittish, none of the harbor seals would put up with the boat getting very close. Kelly's 300mm zoom captured the closest we ever came.

Captain Bob cut the engines just off of Northwestern Glacier. We spent about a half hour watching the calving, which was the most I'd ever seen off any glacier. The activity seemed to be centralized making it easy to aim the camera at the spot where we thought the next icefall would occur. The calvings appeared small since they were so ar away, yet they were quite loud. Boats aren't allowed anywhere near the glacier just in case a big one was to let loose. An extremely large icefall can produce a wave up to 12 feet high, and that's not a wave you want to park your boat in the way of.

After a soothing afternoon of glacier calving it was time to go back. The boat headed out the way we came and I headed in for a nap. I must have slept about 20 minutes. When I awoke Captain Bob had the boat right next to a cliff: "Hope you all had a nice nap. Check out the mountain goats." By the time we located the mountain goats he had identified a black bear at the top of the cliff. Nobody could figure out how he saw it, let alone how he knew it was a black bear. There were waterfalls everywhere and he piloted the boat in close.

We had spent a lot of time stopping for all sorts of wildlife on the way out, so we had to make up some time going back. We spotted more humpbacks, but we didn't stop for them. Captain Bob had one last thing to show us before we headed into the harbor.

It was another kitiwake rookery. But this one had all sorts of other birds hanging around. Little puffins tried to get out of the boat's way, but they were too full of fish to get airborne. They skimmed the water out of harm's way. An eagle buzzed the rookery and caused quite the commotion.

A few cormorants were enjoying the sunny day until our boat came along.

More seals were sunning themselves, and a few arctic terns were bobbing in the water with the kitiwakes.

Artic terns have the largest migration path of any animal. Every year they fly all the way to Antarctica and back to Alaska. In fact, I got wingbeaten in Antarctica's Deception Island by a pair of arctic terns that believed I was encroaching on their nesting area. No such attacks here, though.

We left the rookery and started heading back again. I took this shot of the coastline. The mountains look gigantic because of their snow cover, but they are only 3000 ft high here in Seward. They have a race each year to the top of one of the local peaks and back down. Winners can do it in under an hour. Sheesh.

The boat motored past Fox Island. I guess somebody else picked up the passengers we had dropped off early that morning. We headed into the harbor, but didn't see our otter friends again. What a day! 9 1/2 hours wasn't enough. We could have spent another day admiring the abundant wildlife and scenery.

We disembarked and headed for a local gift shop where we picked up a few souveniers. We got back in the RV and headed back to Anchorage. We stopped again at the lake boardwalk to look for beaver. We saw a muskrat swimming to shore, but no beaver.