The adventures of Mel: Watching whales

Alaska has started redecorating. On the trail I run daily the forest has decided to lay down a vibrant lime green carpet with purple and pink flower accents. The mountain outside my window has reduced its snow cover and begun to look distinctly like a large chia pet, sprouting trees and shrubs and coloring the view. Everything around here has seemed to get brighter and more vibrant.

On Tuesday I took a nine hour boat cruise deep into the Kenai Fjords national park, which is pretty much only accessible by water. It was a fantastic day with sunny skies. Without even leaving the bay we saw a sea otter floating on its back. The wildlife was abundant and captain said it was one of the best tours they had had ever launched. Not ten minutes later we saw a pod of orcas swimming by the boat. Mostly you could just see their tall fins but every so often their black and white faces would peer out of the water. I was completely awestruck. free willy in real life! I took out my camera and blindly took pictures, resulting in about 30 extra shots of just crooked ocean.

Orca fins! the only semi good picture I got of them

Next on our wildlife checklist we have humback whales! These were literally everywhere. I saw at least 15 on the whole tour. We saw a mom and calf, blowing spray into the air. we also saw one whale breech unexpectedly which is really rare. Bubble feeding is another behavior we observed where the whales work together to create bubbles which round the fish up. Then one by one they dive deep and come up straight through the school of fish. The boat was crowded with photographers and wildlife enthusiasts. Every time there was a sighting people would push and shove to the front and there would be comeplete silence except for the clicking of cameras. It got a little ridiculous, it was like a bunch of children in a candy store trying to find willy wonka's golden ticket. If something was spotted on the left side of the boat the entire cruise would rush over to that side. When, say five minutes later, that same animal had migrated to the other side, there was a frantic scrambling to change locations to the other side of the boat. The ferry was rocking so violently that a few times I;m sure we were going to tip over. When the whale breeched out of the water everyone FREAKED out. people were climbing on the deck and shoving to get a better view even though it happened way to fast for anyone to get a decent picture of it. but we stayed and stared at the same spot for 20 mintues, everyone had their cameras ready and focused. I thought it was even cooler that way, nobody got a picture of it, but every single person on that boat will remember that breeching whale forever. It was so magnificent when it thrust its whole body out of the water and just so huge. Its way more special that we got to witness that moment and only have it in our memory.

While all this craziness was happening about 4 porpoises swam right next to and under the boat. Everybody ignored them, searching for the humpback. I thought the porpoises were awesome though! It is one of the fastest of the marine mammals being able to reach speeds of 25miles per hour. So they get a special segment in this post and a nice picture I captured of them.

The entire boat ride was gorgeous, filled with mountain views and so much wildlife. I spent pretty much the whole nine hours outside. And the 15 minutes inside I spent eating lunch I just felt incredibly guilty that I wasn’t outside. Through the remainder of the trip we saw harbor seals, sea lions, mountain goats on shore, puffins, eagles, and lots of different shorebirds. Our halfway stop was at Northwestern Glacier. We broke through the field of ice to come up close to the glacier and parked to boat there for a half hour to watch for falling glacier ice. So. Awesome.

It was an overall spectacular adventure day. I can’t wait for what tomorrow has in store.