We woke to gray skies that threatened rain. Our fair weather window had ended but we had tickets for a six-hour Kenai Fjords National Park wildlife cruise, so we pulled on Gore-Tex and layers, and headed to the dock.
Over slowly delivered, lukewarm scrambled eggs at a joint strategically located to take advantage of hungry tourists catching an early boat, we debated taking dramamine. Neither Mr. Adventure nor I do particularly well in heavy seas. For different reasons, we both vividly recall the time my dad and nephew took Mr. Adventure deep-sea fishing on a party boat off the New Jersey coast. Somewhere I have a picture of my beloved, green-tinged and curled up on a bench inside the cabin with a five-gallon bucket on the floor next to him. Because I plan to stay married to him for the rest of my life, I won’t post the photo here. But trust me, it’s good.
We eventually decided to take a half-dose of anti-seasickness medicine, just in case. Friends who’d gone on a similar cruise the day before said that while the skies were clear, the swells were high. According to their captain, that meant incoming bad weather, a forecast fulfilled the next day when our cruise was scheduled.
Second-class passengers?
There’s a lot of logistical wrangling before you can actually board the boat. We’d been advised to get in the front of the line to get the best seats, and we were ready. Finally, we got on board and headed to the upper deck, where we nabbed a window table. We noticed each table had a number on it. Three minutes later, a family of three came up and said, “Um, we think you’re at our table.” What? Turned out there were assigned seats on this cruise. We went back downstairs, where the crew confirmed we had assigned seats — in the middle of the lower cabin, not near a window, not with a table. Just two seats in a row like you’d find in a movie theater. Honestly, you couldn’t have picked worse seats for looking outside.
I was, to put it mildly, irked, especially when I realized that people who had table and window seats were all members of group tours. Low-to-the-ground travelers that we are, we’d opted to book as a private party. Apparently that meant we were second-class citizens to the boat tour company. To their credit, the crew promised to look for a better seat for us and eventually found a table in the middle, right next to the galley. We were likely to be trapped when the lunch rush began (all those group tours included the optional prime rib-and-salmon meal, which we’d declined) and we still didn’t have a window. Mr. Adventure, annoyed but positive as always, said, “Don’t worry. We’ll go outside and people will start moving around when the cruise starts.” Grrr.
First sighting! Grab the camera! Um….
Unhappy though I was with this inauspicious start to, let’s face it, a rather costly and potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience, I cheered up when, shortly out of harbor, the captain spotted several orcas in the bay. Apparently it’s pretty unusual to see orcas so close to Seward. These were “transient” orcas, as opposed to the “resident” and “offshore” orcas that are more frequently spotted. Transients belong to a separate orca culture, which means their diet, coloring, vocalizations, range, and even the shape of their dorsal fins is different. Unfortunately, neither the captain nor the retired Park Service ranger on board to interpret the sights described what makes transients different from residents or offshore orcas. I had to look that up later. Nevertheless, orcas! It was cool to see them. Everyone crowded to the windows and outside decks, cameras in hand.
This seems like a good place to explain our camera situation. We are iPhone photographers, and novices at that. But we knew before coming to Alaska that we’d need bigger lenses to capture the wildlife and scenery, so we had planned to borrow our daughter’s DLSR. Whoops. She needed it to finish a video for Spanish class, so we were out of luck. But she did offer us telephoto lenses designed for phone cameras. We stuck a flat ring around the viewfinder, and the lens stuck to it magnetically. It was slightly better than nothing. In some photos you will see a shadow in one or more corners. That’s where the lens overlapped the viewfinder, because it’s hard to line it up perfectly standing on a boat deck in the rain and wind. The upshot is, we have a ton of photos of broad expanses of steel gray water with a little blip in the middle. That’s a fin. Luckily, some of those were clear enough to crop without losing too much picture quality.
We did bring binoculars, although again, we didn’t know the boat provided them, which could have saved us weight and room in our luggage. Still, I was happy to have the excellent autofocus binocs my parents had given us. They were much better quality.
So many fins
As the cruise continued into the fjords of the Kenai peninsula, Mr. Adventure wisely began marking the park brochure map with what we were seeing. We saw resident orcas in the Harding Gateway, as well as humpback and gray whales, Dall porpoise, more orcas… At one point more than 25 orcas encircled the boat, checking us out. The captain said this was likely two or three pods joining together for mating season. By mating with an orca from a different pod, genetic diversity is strengthened and the whales are healthier.
We are lucky
Mr. Adventure and I spent most of the cruise on the boat’s aft deck. It was cold and miserable, but we were dressed for the weather. And we quickly realized that being from the Pacific Northwest and spending a lot of time outdoors was an advantage on a wildlife cruise, because we are good wildlife spotters. Just before rounding Callisto Head at the entrance to Resurrection Bay, we spotted a mountain goat halfway up an enormous cliff wall. Its yellowish cream fur made it easy to see, and we pointed it out to several others braving the elements with us. It was another couple of minutes before the onboard interpreter mentioned the goat, at which point we were well past it. And with that, we set a sort of pattern. We’d see something and point it out to fellow cruisers, and a minute or more later an announcement would come over the speaker system.
My irritation with the boat company evaporated as I started helping people spot wildlife on the shore and in the water. We saw several more goats that no one else spotted, as well as more than 25 eagles. Perhaps it is policy to not point out every single animal, but I figured, hey, people paid a lot of money for this cruise and they probably want to see as many critters as possible. Taking a break inside to warm up and have a snack, Mr. Adventure and I reflected on how lucky we are to live in the Pacific Northwest, where charismatic megafauna like elk are often spotted right next to roads. And people were so appreciative when we pointed out something. It was great. Cold, wet, but great.
Glaciers and bears and sea lions, oh my!
After a few hours, the boat entered one of the glacier-carved Kenai fjords, Holgate Arm. The previous day at Exit Glacier, we’d started up the trail to the Harding Icefield, and now we saw some of its 38 glaciers from the water. Bear Glacier appeared first, and then, after the boat motored around the Aialik Peninsula for a couple of hours, Holgate Glacier came into view.
The glaciers were imposing, but I really wanted to see some bears. We’d seen plenty of marine mammals — by the captain’s account, this was one of his best-ever cruises for orcas — as well as a few mountain goats and eagles. Where were the bears? Perhaps it was too early and they were still hibernating. Nope! The captain spotted a big black bear lumbering along the shore and turned the boat for a better view. The bear stayed right at the edge of the water for a long time, which the ranger said was unusual. They’re more likely to be in the bushes searching for food. Maybe this one had a taste for shellfish.
As the boat headed south toward the open water of the Gulf of Alaska, we started looking for pinnipeds. Seals are a common sight in Puget Sound, and Olympia has several good spotting places, but we typically see just a few at a time. I was hoping for a big old pile of sea lions, hauled out on rocks. And that’s exactly what we got at Matuska Island.
Alaska Maritime NWR
Just before the boat turned north to head back, we cruised past the Chiswell Islands, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. “Watch for puffins and other seabirds,” the ranger advised. The islands are an important nesting ground for horned and tufted puffins and for black kittiwakes, which nest directly on the cliff faces. We spotted rafts of puffins and auklets, but no kittiwakes. As the boat motored northward, I stepped inside to warm up and watched out a window near the fire extinguisher and hose. I thought I saw black backs in the water, and asked a passing crew member. “Fin whales,” he said. “Not very common. And see those birds above them? Those are the kittiwakes.” Neither the captain nor the ranger mentioned the sighting, perhaps because we were on the way back to port. And they were quite far away, likely too far for pictures.
Back in port
As the boat docked in Seward, I reflected on the day. We’d seen miles of spectacular scenery and lots of wildlife. We hadn’t felt seasick at all, and we’d helped other visitors see things they might have otherwise missed. Our powerful binoculars and weatherproof rain gear were perfect accessories for the trip. Despite my annoyance with the boat company — I would not recommend it to other travelers — it had been a memorable day. We headed to Anchorage that evening for Mr. Adventure’s meeting, and while there I met a local who gave me the skinny on which Kenai Fjords tour company is the better one. Kenai Fjords National Park is huge, and the only way to see much if it is by private boat. The National Park Service contracts with two concessioners to provide boat tours. Our new friend said Kenai Fjords Tours takes fewer people on smaller boats that are captained by men and women whose families go back generations in Seward. If we’re ever lucky enough to go back to Kenai Fjords, I’ll be booking with them. And I’ll be taking a better camera. But I’ve got dozens of pictures of teeny tiny fins to remember this trip by, and we got a feel for magnificent Kenai Fjords National Park during our two-day visit.