Seward - whale watching and the Sealife Centre

We awoke on the morning of Friday 29th May to find the town of Seward awaiting us. After finally being allowed off the ship (it is all done in very strict priority order), we had a small navigational blip when we tried to get to the small boat harbour (as everyone drives in Alaska, they are not awfully good at giving estimated walking times / distances). But finally we arrived and found, joy of joys, free wifi! Oh, and coffee for Annie!

Me and the wifi!


It was then time to board the Kenai Star for a 7 hour cruise (we hadn't had enough cruising!) to see the wildlife and a glacier.

It was cold on deck!


The Holgate Glacier

The Holgate Glacier again

Me and the Holgate Glacier

The amazing mountain scenery

A "ghost forest" caused by sea-level changes resulting from the massive earthquake in the 1960's

More amazing mountain scenery

The Holgate Glacier calving

Now, be prepared for quite a few animal photos!

Steller Sea Lions, just chilling on the rocks

There were quite a few of them!

Puffins (they are very small in real life, and quite difficult to photograph!)

Common Murre diving sea birds

Sea otter, possibly the cutest animal ever!

Colonies of sea birds

Artistic rock and mountain shot

Whale tail!!

And another one...

More Humpback Whales

A humpback whale feeding on the surface, which we are told is a very rare thing, but to be fair, if we have heard that phrase once on this trip, we have heard it a million times!!

Yet more humpback whales

Orcas, with fabulous mountain scenery behind

We were surrounded by a pod of orcas, and this one came up to check us out a bit more closely!

Love the zoom lens...

Another humpback

Another orca

Iceberg, dead ahead!

A 300 year old margerita, made with that iceberg!

After the cruise we headed to the Alaska Sealife Centre, Alaska's only aquarium.

A King Eider

The Steller Sea Lion, doing laps of the pool... they are huge!!!

We had also been kayaking and seen quite a few sea lions, seals and otters, however it was raining so much that we didn't take any photos!!

Hubbard Glacier and last day on the cruise

The alarm went off at silly o'clock and we put on as many clothes as we had and headed up onto deck to see the Hubbard Glacier. At first it didn't seem like it would be a very successful viewing as the decks were covered in people and we were struggling to see, however it turned out that we should not have panicked as our captain was showing off to his parents who were also on the cruise and proceeded to get us to within 500 metres of the glacier, which is 6 miles side at the toe, just at the time when most of the people had gone inside because they were cold! Happy days, for those of us hardy enough to stay for the duration!

Looking chilly...

Annie with the glacier in the background

Mum and the glacier

Calving glacier

Part of the glacier

See how close we got!

More of the glacier

Me and the glacier

Mum and the glacier

Me and Annie at the glacier

The little speck about 1/3 of the way from the left is another massive cruise ship... gives an idea of the scale of the glacier - it was immense!

Ah, when the glacier viewing was finished it was time to do some cruising as we headed towards Seward. With not much to see, other than some more amazing mountains, and the chance of seeing a whale, the organised fun commenced, including demonstrations of making a black forest gateau (the captain hamming it up for the crowd, and the chief cake maker actually doing it properly)

And an ice-carving exhibition by a Philippino ice carver (every ship in the fleet has at least one ice carver, and we were reliably informed that ice carving is a very popular sport in the Philippines)

After all that group fun, we decided to head on to the deck for a round of putt putt, which ended prematurely when it started to sleet... think it is something about us and golf on this trip that is a bit jinxed

In the somewhat confined conditions, we sometimes had to be a bit creative with our stances!

To celebrate our last night on the cruise, we headed to the fancy steak restaurant for a lovely meal!

And then said farewell to our favourite waiters in the Schooner Bar! Suffice it to say, they knew us by name...

Icy Strait Point & Hoonah

Our next stop on the cruise was Icy Strait Point, which is effectively just a shopping village which has been built exclusively for the one (but only one, which made a pleasant change) cruise ship that is in port each day, with one attraction, being the World's Longest Zipliner, at about 1 mile long, you reach speeds of up to 60mph. Mum very bravely decided to accompany me on the Zipliner... not bad for someone who doesn't like heights!!

About 15 minutes walk from Icy Strait Point was the small village of Hoonah, which was trying to get some of the tourist dollars (Halibut Pizza anyone?), but not succeeding perhaps as much as they wanted to...

The top of the Zipliner

Mum at the top of the Zipliner

Mum on the way down the Zipliner... don't want to brag, but think I should be given some credit for managing to take photos while travelling at 60mph!!

Me, taken from the ground by Annie, who opted to be our official land-based photographer...

The Radiance, from the Zipliner

In our matching Zipliner hoodies... looking well cool, and very street!!

Pretty scenery all around us

Artistic fishing boat photo... go on, everyone has one...

All of us on our walk into Hoonah

Hoonah

Totem pole

Bald Eagles

A whale!

Closer in to the whale! (well, actually, just using the zoom lens) Don't panic, plenty more photos of whales coming...

Skagway & Haines

From Juneau, it was a short hop to Skagway, and another four cruise ship day, but this time in a town with only one street... one word: chaos. We managed to avoid the crowds flocking to the jewellry stores and souvenir shops and found ourselves a great Thai (yep, Thai) restaurant on a side street, and then we headed across to Haines on a fast boat to play golf (yep, golf). Shame it was tipping with rain... But we had a great afternoon of hit and giggle!

The White Pass Train, built after the gold rush:
On the main (and only) street of Skagway):

Every form of tourist vehicle from horse and cart to trolley car:

In front of a massive rotary snow plow!

A memorial to the mad gold-rushers:

Yep, Fairbanks is where we are headed!

The massive Princess Cruise ships back to back... some reverse parking job!

Golfing in the rain... with the biggest golf umbrella ever!

Annie in her rain gear:

Annie setting up a shot (not actually taking it, with umbrella in hand, although that is what it looks like!):

Me and Mum in the rain!

Mary Poppins? Note the nice black sand bunker...

Check out the size of my umbrella! It was branded "Hummer" for good reason...

Despite the rain, smiley faces all round!

Trying to capture some rays of sunlight on the distant mountains:

Watching some rescue training... bear in mind that the water is about 2 degrees centigrade...

Ah, the dirty underbelly of cruising... all the dining room staff having to sing O Sole Mio in Italian to us... the things they will do for tips... I didn't know whether to cry, or run screaming from the room... And I don't think they did either...