link to new pictures with description captions...
I put these blogs up in hopes that some of you will just ride along with us on our adventure. I enjoy doing this and a few of the followers have given positive feedback. I think that if you check "follow this blog box", you will receive email notification when a new posting is put up.
I do hope you enjoy riding along with us, so let's get going on another exciting day. Blogging also gives me a log of travel info.
August 19th... The day is perfect for a boat ride. We are boarding the Glacier Express, a 150 foot 250 passenger excursion catamaran hull boat powered by two big Cat diesels. Our adventure will be a 6 hour 120 mile trip out the Resurrection Bay, to the Gulf of Alaska, into the Aialik Bay, Holgate Glacier and back through Harbor and Chiswell Islands. Everything about the cruise was perfect, good weather, smooth sea, and lots of points of interest. A Kenai Fjords National Park ranger narrated the entire trip. We saw the hump back and the oraca (killer) whale. We saw Steller sea lions, Dall's porpoise, bald eagles, puffins, and a variety of other sea birds. The Holgate glacier provided lot of action with the falling ice and the loud noise as it falls into the water. The captain stopped the engines as we just sat in the calm water with no other noise. I got a series of shots using the rapid fire of my camera. A nice lunch was provided as well as coffee, cookies and cokes. We were able to go anywhere on the boat because at this time of the season it is only about 50% booked. The captain of the boat would stop for just about anything of interest. During WW2 this was a fortified area with bunkers high atop some of the mountain peaks. I carried my GPS so I could monitor the location and the speed of the boat. Top speed was ~27 mph and we traveled 126 miles.
August 20th... This was to be our last day in Seward, be we found more to do, so we extended another day. We went to the Alaska Sealife Center. This is a 3-4 hour self guided tour of a Sealife research center. We enjoyed it very much. We then just sat and watched the fishing activities alone the shore. Every few minutes silver salmon were jumping out of the water and several fishermen were casting their lines out in hopes of catching a big one. Quite a show. From Aug 8-16, is the 54th Annual Silver Salmon Derby with prizes worth over $100,000. That may be the reason we saw so many fishermen around the area, especially the dock area. On the way back to our campsite we stopped by our favorite hotspot, the Holiday Inn Express, and checked our email. There are many others in Seward, but this one works well for me. At supper time, I built a smokey fire for the hoboes (ground beef, potato, carrot and onion wrapped in foil), an old Boy Scout favorite. Seward is another town that we have enjoyed very much. No disappointments, just great adventures everyday.
A little note of interest... This town was almost wiped off the map in the 1964 earthquake/tsunami. There are still reminders in several location around town. It was one of the towns most affected by the Exxon Valdes tanker accident, and was involved in the recovery.
Tomorrow we move on to the western part of Kenai Peninsula, Homer, Kenai, Soldotna, and Anchor Point.
John and Barbara
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