Boat Ride – Seward, Alaska

John, his coworker Billy, and I are heading to the coastal town of Seward.

We are taking a half-day cruise—about three and a half hours—around Resurrection Bay in the hopes of seeing some wildlife and maybe a glacier.

Hey, maybe we should have done this!

The weather isn’t ideal, in fact, it’s supposed to rain today. A few clouds here and there make for some dramatic pictures but full-coverage hazy cloud cover, not so much.

Rather than booking a trip with one of the 200-people-per-boat companies, we have opted for a family-owned cruise company, Seward Ocean Excursions. The boats are small, holding about six people plus the captain. We prefer this kind of intimate experience where you get to know the captain and fellow passengers. It’s more like traveling with friends. One of those little boats is ours, the Missing Lynx.

Mariners’ Memorial? I hope we don’t get eaten by an orca or something.

As we make our way out of the marina, we spy a Coast Guard ship. It is nice to know they are close by.

We turn the corner, head out and into the bay under a watchful eye.

Our boat has an enclosed cabin area, and it is nice for when you need to warm up a bit.

We spend most of our time on the open back deck, however. It’s a little chilly and sometimes we get hit with some spray, but it’s the only way to get a good view all around.

We aren’t too far into the trip and we spy our first sea otter.

It is amazing how big they are. In our minds they were about the size of a house cat, but in reality, they are as big as a medium sized dog.

Calley, our captain, explains that sea otters do not have blubber for warmth. Instead, they have extremely dense, soft coats that keep them warm. However, their front paws and back flippers lack this thick fur. So they lay on their backs, feet out of the water.

Chatter on the radio says today, the wildlife is towards the mouth of the bay, about 25 miles from Seward, so we’ve got a bit of a ride. The scenery is gorgeous even with the cloud cover.

We are hugging the coast line, for the most part, and we manage to see several dall goats hanging out on the cliffs. This one is 300-yards away, according to John’s rangefinder Swarovski binoculars.

The goats are not what we are looking for but they are a great bonus find. The nesting ground for the puffins, cormorants, and kittiwake seagulls are just ahead.

These birds nest on cliff ledges and in the high caves of the mountain face. The cloud cover is thicker here and it is more windy. We start singing the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island,” as we move among the little islands in this part of the bay.

I am completely IN LOVE with the glacial blue water. The brown on the rocks are barnacles and other clingy sea life.

The sound of the water crashing into the caves is unnerving. I finally understand what they mean when they talk about “the sound.” It is a booming sound like a canon fired in the distance.

At the top of this island there is a small cave and we get to see our first puffins.

Upon closer inspection of the tide line we see more than just barnacles. There are purple starfish!

We eventually see an orange starfish, but the purple are most prevalent. The green trees, gray rocks and brown barnacles against the blue ocean are prettier than you would think.

Lichen will grow anywhere.

Look! Even the rocks look like moose in Alaska.

As we meander through the rock islands, the puffins are quite plentiful and are flying all around us. They are small and mostly black which gives the appearance that they are disappearing into the rocks rather than just landing on them. They seem to come out of nowhere.

We even see them floating on the ocean. Watching them fly or run along the top of the water is pretty cool. Calley said that they eat so much fish they get too heavy to take off from the water and that is the only way they can escape from predators.

Something blubbery has been spotted! We are off speeding across the water to find it!

As we are racing along, we pick up a pod of some sort of porpoises.

They are playing in the wake of the boat and chasing us around. Fun!

We get to the area where the whale is and…it is a VERY shy humpback whale. John sees the waterspout and I see it porpoise, but it never does that cool breach thing. We wait for awhile, but it is apparent the whale is not going to resurface. It has been down so long we’re not sure where it might come up next. Rather than wait around, we choose to go find some other wildlife. Like sea lions.

One even gives us a wave “hello.”

Another treat is the cormorants. We see them in the lower forty-eight often, but these red-faced cormorants are only found in Alaska.

Cormorants lack the same oils in their skin and feathers that other water birds have so when their feathers get too wet, they have to dry their wings. I always wondered why they did that.

It seems like every cove we go into we find sea lions and of different species. These two seem to be watching us the way we are watching them.

I get that the rocks are crowded but I’m sure this little girl could have found a better spot. She barely fits on this one.

These two puffins must be anti-social. They are not hanging with the rest of the puffins on the other side of the bay.

As we are heading towards the kittiwake nesting area we come across a cormorant nesting spot. Eww. Look at all the poop.

We are in and out of coves along the shoreline. The cliff face at the mouth of the next cove is dotted with white spots. The closer we get the better we are able to distinguish the poop from the birds. The kittiwakes. They are very dainty seagulls and difficult to find outside of their breeding grounds here in Alaska.

I would imagine that it is better to be the bird on the top level rather than the bottom levels. The black headed birds are guillemots, I think.

Sea lions happen to be great climbers. Who knew? Have I mentioned how much I like this blue glacier water? No? Well, I LOVE IT.

These girls must be the gossip queens of the group. Where are all the babies anyway? And how can they deal with them on these rocks? Hmm.

The wildlife conservation people brand as many babies as they can so that they can track them. I only see one in this group with a brand.

Oh, never mind. The guide said that all of the sea lions we have been seeing are most likely young, bachelor males. They are either too young to breed or, in the case of the larger males, lost the “right to breed with the females” fight. Oh look, more kittiwakes. And poop.

I guess that explains their laziness, or maybe they are depressed. They look depressed don’t you think? I’m going with that.

There are seagulls circling and diving in the water. Calley says that it is a bait ball. We watch for awhile in the hopes that some big creature will come out of the water with a mouthful of fish. Never happens. *sigh

Calley knows a lot of the World War II history of the area and draws our attention to points of interest. This iron door has a twin on the other side of the bay. A steel cable was strung between them with the idea that the underwater cable would catch any submarines that tried to enter the bay. Cool.

In fact, all along the bay on the top of the mountains are hidden lookouts and bunkers. They also hid six-inch guns in many of the natural cave openings.

We apparently floated by a tidewater glacier but the cloud cover is so thick it is barely visible.

Overall, we have had a good day. We were hoping for more whales, but they don’t exactly work on a schedule.