The Marine Scene

So, as I mentioned before, Brian and Edith and I went on a cruise last week, and most of it was not tragic and depressing! So let's talk about the good parts.

It was my second attempt at a Kenai Fjords tour, and the weather was much more cooperative this time around. It was rainy and hideous in Anchorage, but sunny and clear in Seward and out in the gulf, so we got lucky. We saw quite a bit of wildlife -- orcas, various sea birds (no puffins this time, sadly), bald eagles, Dall's porpoises, Steller sea lions, mountain goats, a sea otter, and some awesome jellyfish. I really only managed to get decent shots of the orcas and sea lions:






We stopped at a glacier out in Aialik Bay (can't remember the name of the glacier), and it was really hard to appreciate just how big the ice frontage was -- the captain said it was a half-mile across, and we were a quarter-mile away, but it really seemed like those distances were a few hundred yards. You know, a big slab of snow, sure, but not THAT big. Then a chunk of ice would fall from the glacier, and even though it just looked like a couple chips falling into the water, there would be a pretty impressive rumble and rather large splash, so the chunks were clearly bigger than they seemed. It was impossible to get a good sense of scale, for some reason.



In sum, a good time was had by all! Except when I got hot chocolate and burned the holy hell out of my tongue.