Happy Birthday Stephknee.
Another glorious day in the travels of Marlipops and The Captain.
Up and away at the crack of dawn. Well, 8.06 to be precisely exact.
After a very pleasant drive of 127 miles to Seward, which is on the other side of the Kenai Peninsular, we parked the peril and embarked aboard the good ship Greatland. The weather was “Brochure Fine”, meaning it was so good, beautious blue sky, no clouds and bright sunshine, that all the locals could be out photo-ing and filming for next years sales brochures.
As we left the harbor, we passed 20 million gulls all swarming at one particular spot on the ocean, about ¼ mile from the harbor entrance. This is where a pipeline from the local fish processing plant discharges it’s waste, for recycling. Happy gulls, and happy citizens of Seward, coz the gulls don’t crap in the city!!
We sailed past a snoozing sea otter, who looked at us disdainfully, as if complaining that we had woken him.
We were whisked across Resurrection Bay to the delightful Fox Island. This place has a lodge, a few cabins, a small dock and nothing else, except trees, streams, mountains and wildlife. Some people kayak, others overnight in the cabins and some just hike and laze all day. We had booked kayaking.
After a reasonable lunch of baked salmon, rice, corn and salad we were given our instructions for kayaking, and fitted out with all the gear. We had wellies, (rubber wading boots) skirts and life jacket/floatation devices, and looked pretty nerdy walking across the pebbles to the water.
Luckily for us, we were the only ones kayaking so we had the obligatory guide to ourselves, and he was pretty good.
Off into the wild blue yonder we went, in our tandem kayak, Marlipops in front and me at the back, in the engine and steering department, around Halibut Cove, which was actually very calm, but to Captain Nervous, was very choppy!!
So, we got into the rhythm of paddling, finally, and watched for wildlife. We moved out of the cove, into the full force of an Alaska storm. Actually the waves were very slightly bigger, but down there, literally at sea level, with them humungous mountains all around, it felt like a mega storm! Of course, first mate Marlipops the Calm, who had stopped paddling to take pix, told me to calm down and relax. Her actual words got lost in the howling wind, so I think that’s what she said!
We paddled around the island, and went into Sunny Cove, where we saw lots of puffins, guillemots and other assorted flying creatures. Then, onwards, to the very southern tip of the island, where there were rocky outcrops covered with cormorants, gulls and their droppings.
At this point, the open ocean was facing us, the very tip of the Pacific, at least that’s what our guide said, and the waves started coming at us from several angles at once. So we started back, and as we had the wind and tide with us, the journey back was shorter and easier on the arms.
One interesting phenomenon was dense white clouds started rolling into the Bay from the open sea, but mainly on the opposite side, so all the mountains were shrouded in mist and fog, and as various boats and ships came out of this cloud they looked ghostly and scary.
We arrived back, just as the passengers from another visiting boat, about 100 or so, were boarding to leave. I feared the worst, imagining myself falling out of the kayak as I attempted to get out, or tipping over into the water, or some other mishap to embarrass Marlipops. But, you guessed, Captain Cautious took no chances, and both he and the Pops disembarked without so much as a ripple or a stumble. A perfect landing.
We then sat on the beach, got slightly warm coz the weather was still perfect, and waited for our ship to come in.
Dinner was reasonable, baked salmon, rice, corn and salad!
On the way back, we toured the entrance to Resurrection Bay, went past Barwell Island, a tiny dot of an islet which had a garrison of soldiers during the second world war. There is no harbor here so everything had to be hauled onshore via a great big cable. My thought was how did the cable get there in the first place.
Then on around Resurrection Point, where there were millions of screaming gulls, kittiwakes and cormorants all nesting on the rocks, right down at the water’s edge. There were also millions of flies, all attracted by the bird’s leavings. Every winter, the storms, with their 30 to 50 foot waves, wash all the nests off, thus sanitizing the area, providing a germ free nursery ready for next years crop of birds.
We also saw lots of puffins, birds which can dive to depths of 600 feet, but fly like winged potatoes.
On the rocks we caught a glimpse of some mountain goats, who fall prey to bears in the spring, but whose main enemy is gravity!
The journey back up the bay was just awesome, watching as mountain after mountain went by, interspersed with glaciers, waterfalls and all types of trees.
We went past a rock which had a solar powered camera monitoring some very endangered sealions. They are under threat of extinction coz they are not eating herring any more, herring being scarce, so they are not getting enough fats and oils and stuff.
The powers that be are hoping to get them to eat other types of fish, to survive, otherwise by the year 2040 they will be defunct.
Bald eagles soaring overhead, gulls following the boat, salmon jumping out of the water, and at one point, several Dall Porpoises racing across the bow, leaping all over the place, chasing the salmon.
On the drive back to camp Scenic View we saw a total of 5 mooses, of various sizes.
All in all, a 10 day.
