Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Kenai Fjords Tour

 We had a wonderful day (9 hours) cruising 150 miles of the Kenai Fjords National Park featuring beautiful mountains, glaciers and sea bird nesting colonies, and many sea mammals such as these Steller's Sea Lions, some ranging to 1,000 pounds. We saw Humpback, Sei and Killer Whales, (there was a whole pod of the Orca).  Sea Otter, Harbor Seals, Dall's Porpoise were seen all along the trip. It was wonderful seeing so many birds nesting on the steep cliffs including: Horned & Tufted Puffins, Marbled, Ancient & Kittlitz Murrelets, Com. & Thick-billed Murres, Rhinoceros Auklets, Pigeon Guillemot, Pelagic, Red-faced & Db. Cr. Cormorants, Sooty & Short-tailed Shearwaters, & Black Oystercatcher.

At the farthest end of the tour was the Northwestern Glacier, seen in action with calving below.  It was very loud with the ice crashing and echoing off the canyon walls, like a cannon going off, the ice very blue and exciting to watch,  If you ever get a chance to see this, take it!  We are in the rain forest and it is living up to it's name, lots of rain.   Ty & Ida

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