June 23, 2014
Today we took another glacier and
wildlife viewing cruise. This time we went to the Northwestern
Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park on the View Finder operated by
Major Cruise Tours. We departed port around 9:00 am and returned to
port about 5:45 pm. Part of the cruise was in 8 to 9 foot swells but
the captain did an excellent job finding smooth water whenever it
could be found. It rained off and on through the day so we missed a
few picture opportunities protecting the cameras. Even so we took
more than 1,700 photos (sports mode really runs the numbers up.). We are so thankful for digital cameras. And
you can be thankful that we aren’t posting all the pictures.
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| Southwestern Glacier |
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| Calving, which is part of a glacier falling away, is accompanied by loud booms and roars |
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| Beautiful ice fall caused by a large piece of the glacier breaking off high up |
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| Strange ice formation on top of Southwestern Glacier |
At the end of the trip the captain told us that the seas were at the
limit that he would take the ship out into. He had a coffee cup in
the wheelhouse that had ridden with him for five years and not
fallen. It bounced off its perch today and broke.
It was also at the
end of the trip that we learned of the earthquake and subsequent
tsunami warning in the Aleutian Islands. Fortunately there currently
is no report of problems/injuries from this event and we were never
in the warned area. It would have been nice to have better weather
but it was a great trip! We have lots more pictures of today's trip that we hope to post in the future.
We were greeted by more bald eagles when we arrived at the campground because someone across the creek from the campground had throw a bunch of large salmon heads into the stream bed.
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| Immature bald eagle |
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| Two immature bald eagles sparring |
Hi Anne, I found you're blog through the TiffinRVNetwork forum. We are headed to Alaska. We are now in Edmonton Alberta. I haven't got to read all the entries but have thoroughly enjoyed the ones I have. I have a few questions. What kind of photographic equipment do you have? You have some excellent photos! Do you make campground reservations ahead of time? Did you survive Canada without a cell phone and data plan or did you buy international minutes? What recommendations for first time visitors to Alaska? Thanks for any info and I will keep reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi. Glad to hear you are enjoying the blog and maybe we will be close enough to meet up sometime while we are both in Alaska. Canada was a little hard for us because we are so technology dependent. We did not buy international minutes and for data were able to find free hot spots most days. Tim Horton's has excellent Wi-Fi. We use multiple cameras. We have a Nikon D-5300, Nikon P600, and we also use our droid phones for some pictures. The past three weeks we have also used some pictures our friends have taken on their Cannon SX50. We make reservations part of the time but usually only a day or 2 ahead - sometimes just call same day to be sure there are vacancies. We are not on a fixed schedule so have the ability to be flexible. So far that has not caused us any problems. We also like to boondock whereever we decide to stop. If you have more questions you can email me at aarmstrongcrnp@gmail.com
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