After departing Denali National Park, our second big destination for Janelle’s visit was Kenai Fjords National Park. Janelle is our resident coastal ecologist. When I mentioned Kenai Fjords as a possible destination, her enthusiasm was immediate! So we set off southward for Seward, Alaska, the starting point for exploring the fjords.
We got lucky, very lucky, with both the weather and getting a campsite. We had flipped the order of the Denali and Kenai Fjords visits to give us the best weather for a tour boat excursion. I had a campground reserved in Seward and was was able to tack an extra two days onto the start of that reservation. Win! We now had four nights in Seward. This is the City of Seward campground, dry camping (no hookups) in our section. We we had excellent views and were within easy walking distance of downtown Seward.Janelle is one happy camper, enjoying a “set-up beer.” Here’s looking at you Dan!Our campsite was not right on the water, but only one row removed. During the week, the campground was quiet. During the weekend, it was wall-to-wall people, mostly people from Anchorage coming down to fish for salmon. The views from the campground were tremendous!!!!
As I said, we were within easy walking distance of downtown, and that included the docks. Our first night in Seward, we wandered down to the docks at 5:00, which is when all the charter fishing boats came in. We settled in for some entertainment.
Here we have a charter boat captain pushing a wheel barrel full of “something” up the ramp from the dock.The something in the wheelbarrow turned out to be a whole lot of fish! Halibut, salmon and rockfish.They would hang the day’s catch up on hooks and hose them down to get the, uh, “yuckies” off them.And then it was time for the obligatory photo op…the people who caught the fish and the captain. Lots of smiles going around here. And lots of BIG fish.From there, the boat’s crew cleaned all the fish for the people who caught them. In the center of the two cleaning tables was an opening that all the fish guts were tossed into. Below the fish cleaning station was a floating barge that caught all the guts. It’s there in the picture. Once the barge is full, the barge and its cargo is hauled out to sea and dumped. They don’t dump the guts in the boat harbor, that would attract the sea lions and disrupt their natural feeding activities. Even still, we saw had one huge sea lion swimming around the docks looking for a hand out.This sea gull was looking for a hand out too!Finally, all the fish fillets are taken to a company right on the docks that would flash freeze the fish, packed them in dry ice, and shipp them back to your home. I have NO idea how much this all costs, but we saw they could get a lot of fillets out of a single halibut! And halibut goes for around $30 a pound.There was a stream that exited into Resurrection Bay, which is what Seward is on. This was a very popular place to snag salmon. Yes, snagging is legal with a fishing license. We watched for a bit, but really didn’t see any fish get caught, I mean snagged, during this evening visit.
Seward is also a destination for cruise ships. When we got up in the morning, a ship would be in port, having arrived in the early morning. In the evening, we would see the ship depart for its next destination. Every day it was a different cruise line.
One day one of the cruise ships departed early for some reason. The shop owners on the docks were not happy about that…the early departure meant income lost!
Now let’s get to the real reason we were here…a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. There is only one way to see the Park, and that is by water. So we signed up for a 7.5 hour boat tour. It did not disappoint.
We decided to do our tour with Major Marine. Our vessel was the Spirit of Adventure (appropriate name). We had three floors at our disposal, including assigned seating at a table on the first level. To step outside, we had access to the bow on the first level and the top level.As we departed that morning, we could see Sandy, our RV, parked in the city campground.
It turns out we picked an EXCELLENT day to go out into Resurrection Bay and the Gulf of Alaska. No swells, no wind, no clouds. Even the crew of the boat was marveling at the conditions and the amount of wildlife we saw.
It’s difficult get pictures of wildlife without the proper camera equipment. Below are my feeble attempts.
We saw orcas a number of times. The captain would spot them from her third level bridge and bring the boat near by. Then she would kill the engines so we could float by.These are sea otters just hanging out in the middle of the Bay of Alaska. Sorry for the cruddy picture, my little point and shoot camera just can’t do it.
We also saw humpback whales, puffins, and many other kinds of seabirds.
Stellar Sea Lions enjoying the sunny day.You can barely see the white head of a bald eagle in this picture. It’s right in the center. Don’t worry if you don’t spot it, an upcoming blog will have many, many bald eagles!Interesting rock formations…..….that the captain drove our boat through.
Views of two tidewater glaciers were also included on our tour.
Glacial ice that calved off the glacier was floating around us.The Aialik Glacier, coming off the Harding Icefield.Getting closer. We hung around here for 30 minutes to watch ice calve off the glacier and fall into the water. It was pretty amazing.Photo opportunity for us! Then the crew pulled out a net to fish some glacial ice out of the water. Cool! We were going to get to handle some ancient ice.It looks very pristine and clear. But then we heard the head steward mention something about making margaritas. What????Sure enough. The crew took the glacial ice into the galley and started breaking it up. Before long, Jimmy Buffet’s song Margaritaville was playing over the loudspeaker and we were all lining up for a glacier margarita.Cheers!What a great way to cap off a magnificent day on the water. The boat trip was totally worth it.
We had another couple of days in Seward and got the eBikes out for the first time and used them to zip around and explore the town. Alaska towns have excellent paved bike paths by the way!
We watched with interest this guy climb into the water with wet suit, foil board and a sail of some sort.It took some effort, but he finally go up!
We also took some time to get some maintenance done on the RV. What do you do when your able bodied daughter comes to visit? Send her up on the roof of the RV of course.
Janelle always had a thing for climbing on the roof of any RV we owned.In this case, we sent her up with a wrench to make sure all the solar panels were still bolted down tight after the bumpy ride down the Alaska Highway.
On our last full day in Seward, the weather turned a little less favorable.
This was the weekend. You can see how the campground filled right up. Mind you, this is all densely packed dry camping and we were all paying $40 a night just for a place to park. Such is Alaska!
We went up to the Kenai Fjords National Park Visitor’s Center to see what was what.
Janelle wanted to do a hike up to Exit Glacier. James and I and our tired legs (still recovering from all the hikes in Denali) happily waved her on her way.This is Exit Glacier. The Park had placed signs all along the road and the trails indicating how much the glacier has retreated over the years. It was A LOT.
To close off the visit in Seward, we had a pot luck with some new friends. We first met them at Liard Hot Springs in British Columbia. Then we were all at the same park in Watson Lake, Yukon. Coincidentally, they were also in Seward when we were there. Any excuse for a get together!
Janelle (from Maine), Suzanne and Joe (from New Jersey), Darrel and Theresa (from northern California), and Corinne and the ever invisible James (from New Mexico). Friendship on the road! We’ll see them all again at an RV Rally in a few weeks.
Janelle had 18 hours left in Alaska, she was catching a red eye flight out of Anchorage to east coast the next afternoon. It was a great visit, but much too short for Janelle’s liking. Alaska…she’ll be back! The next day, we were off to Anchorage, again, to get her to the airport.
Somehow now I think you will be heading due north for good. Looking like a great time!