Chapter 10: Great. More Boats.
Ever get that feeling of déjà vu?
This update is going to feel very familiar if you read the earlier chapter on Glacier Bay, but I promise this was a completely different day and experience. Would I ever lie to you?
Besides the parts about the exploding helicopters, I mean.
Once again, we would be spending approximately 8 hours on a boat tour of a national park—this time in
Kenai Fjords. As with the other parks, most of the acreage is undisturbed by roads, so the boat tours are the primary means for tourists to visit. We were up bright and early to make sure we didn’t miss the 8:30 a.m. departure time.
We drove into the town of Seward and parked in the satellite lot owned by the touring company. From there, we took a small shuttle bus to the small boat harbor to check in for the tour. We even had time to walk over to the National Park visitor center so Drew could turn in his workbook from the day before and get his 4th Junior Ranger badge of the trip.
The tour operator we’d chosen was
Kenai Fjords Tours, and we were sailing on the Glacier Explorer. We boarded the ship and found a seat around a table on the first floor that would be our home base for the day.
As we pushed away from the dock, the captain began speaking over the intercom. He was kind of a goofball, as he never introduced himself other than saying he was the “disembodied voice in your head.”
Goofballs are always welcome on my adventures. As if you didn't know that.
In what was perhaps a good omen for spotting wildlife, the crew immediately pointed out a bald eagle that was perched by the piers as we entered Resurrection Bay.
Once again, we had overcast skies as we started our voyage into deeper waters. Some of the light/shadows produced by the clouds over the mountains were striking, though.
Ever get that feeling of déjà vu? Oh, sorry, I already asked that. Once again, there were otters doing the backstroke.
I could never get tired of the various rocky islands dotting the bay. The beauty of the natural scenery is just overwhelming.
As we cruised along the various islands, we scared a flock of puffins into flight. That’ll teach ‘em!
The disembodied voice apparently also had a disembodied eye somewhere, because he spotted bald eagle #2 for us (center of photo).
Before long, we found a humpback whale cruising the shoreline.
Is that enough wildlife for you? No? Well, there was a dolphin who decided to race behind the boat in our wake for a minute or so. I wasn’t fast enough to get to the back of the boat for a good photo other than to catch him just after a leap.
And here’s bald eagle #3 on the day.
Maybe you’re bored with bald eagles. How about another up-close-and-personal visit with a whale?
We finally cruised out of Resurrection Bay and into the open ocean, and the wildlife sightings died down for a bit.
Unless you count this:
It kind of looks like he’s perched on a frozen dolphin there.
We took a turn around some more islands and began cruising north into Aialik Bay. While we were moving through this area, the crew served lunch to the guests on the ship. Lunch consisted of déjà vu—excuse me, a chicken wrap, chips, bottled water and granola bar. Certainly not a bad meal, and eating also provided the key benefit of giving Drew something to do other than ask when the tour would be over.
The boat also sold refillable mugs for $7 that you could use for bottomless refills of Coke products. So we bought one and then shared it amongst ourselves. I know, you’re going to start crying “COVID” and stuff, but at this point, we’ve all been sharing one hotel room for a week and a half. If one of us has COVID, then we all have it.
When we reached the northern end of the bay, we were confronted with the awesome sight of the Aialik Glacier.
It’s 4 miles long and…well, I don’t know how high it is. It’s a lot of ice.
We hung out here for quite a while, once again enjoying the sights and sounds of ice calving into the sea. And this time I…almost caught it on camera. You can see the spray from the chunks hitting the water in the center of the photo here.
But as they say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. So we just enjoyed the deja view, complete with kayakers included for scale.
Obligatory family photo:
The crew worked to fish glacial chunks out of the water and brought them up on deck so we had the chance to hold a piece of an actual glacier. Now there’s a thrill! It’s a cold, slick, icy surface. It felt almost as if we were holding a chunk of ice.
The boat turned back around and we headed out of the bay. But we didn’t follow the same path back to Seward. Instead, we headed out into the ocean once more. After a while, the disembodied voice informed us that they had a report of a pod of orcas out in the sea, so there were working on finding them for us. Sign me up!
All we had to do was sit back on the boat, enjoy the view, and let the crew do the work. And—oh, look! Orcas.
There were 5-7 of them, and we spent a good deal of time watching them dive and come back up for air. I’d never seen orcas in the wild before, so this was a thrill for me. Although my thrill was lessened when my kids informed me that apparently
killer whales are the biggest jerks and bullies in the ocean. I did not know that.
Well, whatever. It was still cool to see them.
We began our return trip to Resurrection Bay, and just like our earlier boat tour, the sun began to peek out of the sky while we enjoyed the scenery. Here’s some photos so you can do the same thing.
I was fooling around with settings on my phone and clearly over-processed this one. Sorry about that.
The last stop on the tour was Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, where we docked and went ashore to enjoy an early dinner.
Was it a great meal? No. But it was fine. Chicken, salad, corn, dinner roll. Nothing fancy, but it was included in the price of the tour. So we had that going for us, which was nice.
We hung out on the “beach” outside, which consisted of mostly rocks. And as the ancient law decrees, where there are rocks by a body of water, then yea verily, thou shalt attempt to skip those rocks.
And thus it came to pass.
They sounded the horn to board the boat again, and then we were treated to by far the best part of dinner as we boarded. We got a dessert of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven. Chocolate chip cookies follow much the same shelf-life rules as McDonald’s french fries—for the first 7 minutes out of the oven (fryer), they are quite simply the greatest food you will ever eat. Literally cannot be topped. After that, the enjoyment factor follows a
graph similar to a radioactive half-life decay of an element, although much of that shelf life still falls into the pretty-good-decent-fine area.
It’s not a perfect comparison, as I would argue that the shelf life of chocolate chip cookies far outlasts those of the french fries, but you get the idea. Eating one in those first 7 minutes is the key.
That was a very enjoyable final leg of the boat ride.
Even better, they had leftover cookies waiting for us as we disembarked once we reached the Seward dock. Naturally, they didn’t taste quite as good as the fresh ones, but they were still fairly high on the half-life taste curve. It was tempting to hold up the line and stuff a few more into my pockets. I wouldn’t do that, though. I’m too nice.
I told Drew to do it instead.
Coming Up Next: Our final day, where we follow our age-old family tradition of procrastinating the end of our vacation as long as possible.
Similar to Hawaii, where eventually you just start saying, "oh look, another waterfall."
