Day 3 Seward, Kenai Fijords National Park Boat Tour, I (heart) Dramamine

After the near miss at the IMAX, I decided to hop my mother up on Dramamine pre-boat tour in the open ocean. It proved extremely effective, and besides a rather rough patch about half-way through, she made it.

We woke up early to drive the three hours from Anchorage to Seward--a little port town on the Kenai Peninsula. We saw some beautiful scenery on the way down and stopped to take a few pictures:

The port was huge compared to what I imagined it would be like. We we arrived to board our boat, a gigantic cruise ship had just arrived in the harbor. . .

Our boat was a decent size, but looked like it was going to be plenty full. This initially annoyed me, but I decided to make the best of it. We managed to have an ok time despite the 40 degrees temps and rain/sleet most of the day. Yuck. My hands were FREEZING. I took my nerdy camera gloves with the grippy things on the palms; coincidentally, these worked great from a "dear-god-don't-let-me-drop-my-four-million-dollar-camera" standpoint, but not so well in the "keeping warm" arena. (They are knit and once they got wet it was over.) My mom lent me her leather gloves about 15 minutes before the end of the 6 hour tour and this helped quite a bit.

Several animals were out and about--lots of birds, seals, sea lions, eagles, puffins, gulls, etc. No bears, but we did happen upon a pod of humpback whales. (really big deal) They like to stay under water of an exhorbitant amount of time in-bewteen breaths (~thirty minutes). This feels like an eternity when standing in the rain, on a rocking boat, in 40 degree temperatures, with freezing wet hands/gloves, worrying about your camera getting wet and your mother throwing up all over the boat. I got a couple of ok shots out of the 4,000 I took.

The main reason for the boat tour was obviously the glaciers. We saw several large glaciers, but one in particular we got right up against and the captain shut off the boat and just let us sit there. It was fairly amazing. The ocean around the glacier is a sort of slushy/crushed ice consistency. Several decent size pieces of ice (mini-cooper-ish in size) can be seen floating all over the place. Birds and seals just hang out like its a hot tub. It is fiercely cold and windy. The most amazing thing, perhaps, is the sound. Almost constant cracking can be heard--reminiscent of thunder or a lightening strike. You feel as if the whole thing is going to fall into the ocean any minute. We saw several good size chunks fall in (called "capping"), but mainly a whole lot of noise. It was completely unbelievable to be so close to something like that.

Once back in harbor, we saw a fishing charter unloading its catch for the day. LOTS of fish. They stack them all on the dock and then the crew on the boat fillet them and ship them to a local restaurant to have them "processed."

These guys can break down some salmon. Seriously. I mean, I can fillet a fish, but I would still be picking out the correct cutting board and they are halfway through an entire wheelbarrow of fish. The whole experience was a teeny bit gross, but interesting.

After the exhausting day at sea, we found our hotel--an adorable lodge booked by yours truly--and had dinner in the hotel restaurant. I already started eating my dinner before remembering to document it, but you'll get the gist I think. Chicken Saltimbocca. Pretty good. The last shot is the view from my seat at our table. I can book a killer vacay. . .

Tomorrow we are off to Girdwood--home of Alaska's most famous resort, The Alyeska (ally-ES-ka). It has a tram that takes you to the top of a mountain where you can view the whole ski resort as well as the valley below. The website made it appear Sound-of-Music-esque from a scenery stand-point; so I am expecting big things. Until tomorrow night. . .