Seward – TravelmyStories

The alarm clock yelled at us at five in the morning to wake up. Diligently we got ready and like soldiers on duty, at 6 am we were walking through the dark and silent 4th Ave. We thought we will find something open to have breakfast, but the small town was asleep. Finally around 6:30 we saw the Breeze Inn open and for our surprise Arthur was our server again, but now in a different restaurant. It was funny to see him again.

Once we finish with breakfast we were doing our registration with Kenai Fjord Tours at seven like was instructed to us. I looked around and saw people so bundle up for the tour that I question if I came prepare enough for the cold winds of Resurrection Bay. Before starting our tour I got two souvenir, a hoody and a coffee mug. I advise my hubby to buy some kind of hat or hoody to cover his ears because it was going to get cold with the combination of the wind and ocean. He didn’t want to, he thought I was exaggerating same as the rest of the people.

Well, it was time to move, the catamaran started slowly to navigate through Resurrection Bay. The wind started caressing Jorge’s ear with cold hands and he looked at me like he was in trouble. The famous “I told you so” came out of my soul, still I gave him my hat that barely fit him and I wrap my head with my scarf and a not so warm hoody that one of my jackets had. Let me show you.

Despite the cold wind, my level of excitement were higher enough to kept myself focus on the outdoor experience. I had my camera in hand at all time. I was the first one in the bow. I had a great position to take pictures, I did not want to leave my spot. In other hand Jorge tried to keep up with me but he couldn’t, every so often we went inside to hide from the chilly wind.

Our first encounter was with a sea otter right after we left, them we our our first eagle. He was blending with the rest of nature. Moving his head side to side wondering where to fly next. We stop to see it and then we kept going. Everything was so beautiful that I wanted to capture all.

We moved along through perfect scenery. Big rocks formation merging out from blue-green waters. The morning light trying to get through the maze of rocks and mountains, green pine trees on top of the rocky mountains moving slightly with the soft wind. Then, cute sausages were looking at us. Harbor seals!

On our way to see glaciers, I diligently looked for my whale encounter. Until that wonderful moment that I saw a humpback whale breaching! Everything happened so fast and so slow at the same time. The boat captain didn’t notice, she only saw the splash. I saw the massive body lift through the waters but nobody noticed it. I pointed out to the direction where the whale was, people turned to see what was going on and the captain slowed down the boat. We waited to see if the whale was going to continue with the show. But it didn’t happened. That memory will stayed always within me, because I wasn’t able to capture it on camera.

As we approached the glaciers, the air was colder and the water light green. We passed floating pieces of ice, we were getting closer and closer.

We spent quite some time at the glaciers. We witness the glacier transform. Huge pieces of ice broke, falling to the water making an aftermath of small waves and sounds. The time passes and nobody cared. It was nice to see nature working.

We left the glaciers and I was getting worried that the tour was going to end without any whale encounter. I was still in position, in front, on the bow. I was looking everywhere, like the captain was needing me to give her signal at the first whale sight. And then, it happened.

Everyone was so excited, this time was for real to all those waiting for this moment. Cameras were going frantically. Every time the two whales dived we all investigated all sides of the boat so see where they were coming up again. One of the whales waved at us happy to see us.

My adventure was complete! I was so happy. The only lament that I have was that one of the whales breached so close to us and I missed it. I missed the jump, the whale… everything. The only thing I saw was the splash. Still this tour was amazing experience. Six hours of enjoyment, also they fed us. That was the only moment went I got inside and sat for few minutes.

Here is a video with a glimpse of our tour. I hope you like our adventure and come with us every time through TravelmyStories.

Until then,

xamlinnette 🙂

This is a simple story. Is the story about a travelers dream visiting for the first time Seward, Alaska. If you haven’t been in Seward, or any place in Alaska you might want to tag alone with me here. I don’t mind see places through other people’s eyes, if I haven’t had the chance to visit the place yet. I invite you to see Alaska through my eyes, my emotions and memories. There is one thing I want to tell you before we start our walk through Alaska, one of the reasons for us ( my husband and I) to do our vacation here is because of the wild life. I love the outdoors and enjoy very much watching all kind of wildlife but to be more specific I came on a quest to see whales… Humpback whales. Since I was in my early twenties, when I was doing my bachelor degree in biology I wanted to continue my studies in marine biology to specify on whales. But life took another turn on me and my marine mammals biology degree didn’t happened (just plain biology). Instead I become a mom and things went to a different direction for me. Since then is been in my bucket list to at least go whale watching and finally I thought this was my chance to do it, in Alaska.

The hotel was simple, there was nothing luxurious about it. Our room was clean and cozy with no AC. Everybody was telling us that the weather was a little more warmer on those days, we could tell from the warm on the room. But who cares with the views you can see just by stepping out of the door, the beauty and the luxuries were outside. I live in Florida and everything is flat, swampy, humid and hot, not so attractive to me, so I was in heaven.

Down the street there is an RV camp area. Oh the simple life! Seen all the campers reminded me that I want this kind of life too. Having the encounter with the RV campers helped me on my process of convicting my husband that we should try RV on our future.

Walking down the street to the right is the RV camp, to the front of us is the bay and mountains and to the left is the marine town of Seward. We didn’t go to downtown Seward, it was like 6 miles away. For what we heard there is another RV camp over there too.

Continuing our walk and with a little bit of hunger we went to explore the restaurants and business they had. After studying the menus of some of their restaurants we decide to eat at Ray’s Waterfront Restaurant. They had a great selection of items to eat and offered us a magnificent view of the bay. Our server, Arturo (Art) told us quite few interesting things about Seward. He told us that during the summer in Seward is very busy, lots of RVs, fishing aficionados, wildlife and outdoors lover go there to enjoy all that Alaska have to offer. Because is so busy most of jobs are seasonal, once the summer is over, so do the jobs. We were there during the last two days of August, and the summer was basically over. We were one of the few tourist around that week. Even our server was working there seasonal, he have few more weeks to work and then he will return to his home. He works in two restaurants, one in the mornings and at Ray’s in the afternoon, he told us the money is good and that will help him to save some money.

After we left Ray’s Waterfront Restaurant we walked back the way we came and looked with more details the main street and the surroundings. Check the video below and you will see Ray’s restaurant.

We stopped at the Harbors Creamery, even the afternoon was getting a little chilly we ate a yummy ice cream. Like us some people from the town make the same decision and came for ice cream too. It was nice feeling like one of the town people. I couldn’t believe the feeling of not been in a hurry for something. I felt so careless about the time, I didn’t care how long we were there sitting observing people and the only street that we had to walk to get back to our hotel. And definitely I didn’t mind looking to the mountains over and over again wondering when was going to be my first wildlife encounter.

Then we walked down the street to the Seward Mariners Memorial where one of the locals told us that we can see sea otters form the shore. She told us that there is a family of about seven of them been cute over there, so we went. Like I mention before the ambience is so relax and peacefull that we could stay there just admiring the view.

So I was there, trying to capture all that beauty with my camera. Looking to see if I could find the sea otters, looking through my lens the details of the mountains. Admiring the frozen snow sitting on on top of the mountains and slinging down trying to touch the ocean. While I was there all romantic with nature, Jorge took a seat on a rock and played with his cellphone (Facebook…)

My first encounter with wild-life! I found one of the otters, actually I think there were two of them around but I couldn’t tell for sure.

Come and see few more details of our walked in Seward…

Now before we went back to our room and called it for the day, we took a little video of our surroundings. This way you have a perspective of a moving environment, not only of still pics.

It was like 9:00 pm and the colors of the day were vanishing little by little bit. We were exhausted! We walked to our hotel that was like five minutes away. Even though was a little chilly outside, our room was mild, perfect for me but not so perfect for Jorge that likes a room like a freezer to be able to sleep. The fatigue was stronger than the temperature issues, soon we fell sleep. Next day we woke up at 5 am ready for our first Alaska water adventure, but that’s another story.

Until then, stay tune for Kenai Fjord Experience!

xamlinnette 🙂

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