USA – Day 6 – Cruising the Kenai Fjords National Park

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

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.

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

Kevin spent most of the day like this…

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…

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We saw lots of puffins.

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

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.

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

We saw lots of birds and their nesting sites.

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

And more sea lions.

Love these two fellas.

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

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