Lions, Puffins and Whales, Oh My!

700. This is roughly the number of photographs we took on our Kenai National Fjords Boat Trip. Now I will not be adding 700 pictures to the blog but I will give you a taste of some of our really good shots.

The Kenai (pronounced Kee-nai) National Fjords Park is located near Seward, Alaska. This map will show you the route of our trip.

We followed the blue route.

Anyways, upon waking that morning we saw the sun and believed it to be a beautiful day. I got my contacts out and was ready to put them in when, I realize I needed new ones. So I went to get them from my bag and they aren't there. Then it dawned on me, I left them in NJ. I came to Alaska with used contacts and then didn't bring extras.

So now I'm annoyed. I still have two weeks left of this vacation and there are plenty of times that I will need my contacts. These include snorkeling, white water rafting and dinners on the ship. After much chagrin, a thought came to me - I would get them overnighted. And now, thanks to Nana, they are on their way. I will update later as I track their process across the country.

Now back to Kenai. I put my contacts in only to discover that the right one was bothering me. After some annoyance, I took it out and realized that it had a tear in it. So I saw Kenai with one contact.

We boarded our boat at around 830 and were off to visit the Fjords by 9. Here are some of the animals we saw.


Sea Otters


Whales


Harbor Seals


Sea Lions


Puffins


Sea Stars

The crux of our tour was a visit to the Northwestern Glacier - something only 200,000 people have witnessed. As we headed towards the glacier, our captain regaled us with tales of how much the glacier has receded in 100 years. Since 1909, the Northwestern Glacier has receded 2 miles to its spot today. The melting has slowed but that amount of loss is significant.





After leaving the glacier, we headed back towards Seward. It was a three-hour trip back and we finally hit land at 615. We got into the truck and began our trip back to Fairbanks. We stopped at the Summit Lake Lodge for dinner - same place we stopped on the way down - and ended our night at the Portage Valley RV Park - Mile Post 78.9 - near Whittier. We were all hunkered down for the night when....all the lights went out.

After much tinkering by the men and much staying out of the way by the women, we discovered that the inverter had gone bad. Everything that was on A/C power was working but nothing on 12-volt was. So we decided to bundle up and sleep for a bit before heading out the next day.