Alaska 3

Here we are, still in Alaska with another week to go. The weather, the scenery, and the animals have all cooperated very nicely. Seward had 32 straight days of rain until the day we got here and it has been beautiful (70 and sunny) since. There was a rainbow over the harbor the evening we got here.

Grizzlies walk through the yard of the B & B that we are staying at, but we haven't seen one yet. A couple of hundred yards away there is a salmon stream full of salmon that the bears come to.

We took a 6 hour boat trip into a National Park yesterday. This trip is known for being unpredictable in terms of wildlife spotted and especially for roughness of the trip. Among the first instructions when we boarded was which rail to puke over. They told us to lean over and "go for distance". At the end of the trip one of the deck hands said that they call the boat the "puke boat" because many people can't handle the ride. I had a big breakfast so I would have lots of ammunition but no problems, our ride was the smoothest of the summer they said. No seasickness at all. Whew!

The photos are of the day's catch from one of the fishing boats you can go out on. They are mostly halibut, 2 red rockfish, and 2 gray looking cod.

The blue water with the black spot is a fin whale. At 120 feet long it is second in length to only the blue whale. If you click on the photo to blow it up you can see the back fin and also the vapor from a couple more fin whales nearby.

The boat is similar to the one we were on. It is in front of a calving glacier. Calving is the process of large pieces of the glacier falling into the sea with a big crash and subsequent wave. Very cool! We also saw harbor seals, Dall's purpoise, sea lions, puffins, sea otters, bald eagles, more glaciers, etc., etc.