After a bit of rough nights sleep we had a somewhat lesiurely morning. We did venture down to Stoney Creek to take some photos.

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Around 10.30 a shuttle came to pick us up for our Kenai Fjords National Park Tour. We didn’t see a lot of the town of Seward but we liked what we saw.

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Here’s a pic Kevin snapped of me updating facebook before we boarded our boat :-) .

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Kevin spent most of the day like this…

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and all the great animal close-up shots are thanks to him.

It wasn’t too long before we had our first wildlife encounter. Two very cute sea otters floating around…as they do…

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Then some small orcas…they didn’t hang around very long though…

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Lunch was served… I got hummus and lettuce wrap which was really delicious (Kevin said his chicken wrap was okay).

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We saw some sea lions and learnt that the light coloured ones have been out of the water for a while and are dried off.

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We then headed to a glacier – boy was it cold out here. And windy – don’t you just love my hair? :-)

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I was amazed you could hear the ice creak and groan and we saw little bit carve off. I was also amazed to see chunks of ice in the water. I know you see it in brochures but it’s still a surprise in real life.

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I had to move inside fairly promptly as it felt like my ears were turning into icicles :-) . I could still see great out the window though. As we left here we came across the rare sight of a black bear swimming.

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We watched as he swam then climbed up the rocks. So cute.

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We saw lots of puffins.

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And quite a few mountain goats – there’s a little baby in the middle.

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Then, what we’d all be waiting to see, a pod of orcas – actually we saw two pods. The first included a mum and baby.

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And the baby was kind enough to show off for us.

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We saw lots of birds and their nesting sites.

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Another Mum and bub – though the baby (on the nest) is nearly as big as the Mum).

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And more sea lions.

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Love these two fellas.

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On the way back to Seward we were given some delicious warm cookies.

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We arrived back around 5.30pm totally thrilled with all we had seen. I think we saw everything I ever saw pictured or described in relation to this cruise.  We bought a few things in the gift then got the shuttle back out to Stoney River.

I was happy to discover we had great internet connection (it’s a bit patchy) so I was able to get my blog up to date and upload todays photos. I made us pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. Then I blogged, while Kevin watched some TV shows, before going to bed.

Tomorrow : Sled Dogs and a scenic river float trip on-route to Homer

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