Update for Aug 10th, 11th and 12th.

We left Soldotna on the 10th, saying goodbye to Richard and Svetlana. We were headed back to Seward to see the Exit Glacier and a tour of the bay area. Once again we were lucky to get a campsite right on the ocean and near the harbor. It didn’t have hookups, but we had the generator and enough propane to see us though. After securing our campsite we headed back to the Exit Glacier in Kenai National Park and explored that a bit. We took the easy trail until one of the other trails branched off and Dale went on to see more. He got close, but not close enough to touch the glacier. In 1998 that trail was close enough to touch the ice. I took another loop around the easy trail for the exercise.

When Dale got back from his walk we went back into Seward to look around and make decisions about the next day. He really wanted one of the tours to see more glaciers and wildlife. After checking out the tours we went to eat and then walked around the harbor.

The next morning, Aug 11th, was sunny and warm so Dale decided to take the longer tour that began at 10 AM and got back at 5:30 PM. I left him on the boat and went for a walk around town. I found the library, spent some time there then went looking for the quilt shop. While there I witnessed a lady shoplifting. They basically took back the merchandise and let her go. Apparently that is very common this downtown area. I strolled along looking at all the little shops, enjoyed myself. About 1:30 PM I headed back to the campsite. I was tired of walking and needed a nap. I read for a couple of hours then decided to take my NOOK and go down to the harbor to wait for his boat to come in. The boat was right on time and we headed for a restaurant to eat supper.

Dales’ day: The boat tour went out to see two tidal glaciers in Kenai National Park. The boat was a large catamaran with 3 decks and seated 200 people, but was probably only 2/3 full. There was a park ranger on the boat that talked a lot about the things we were seeing and the local history. Unfortunately, many other people were usually talking so I did not get much of what he said. It was a great day for a boat ride as it was mostly sunny and you could see all the mountains, cliffs, snow, glaciers and animals very well. It was expensive, but just a spectacular ride.
Along the way we saw Orca and Humpback whales, porpoises, Puffins (rare birds), lots of other birds, harbor seals, sea lions and a mountain goat. There were 3 to 5 Orca whales, but they were on the other side of the boat most of the time, so I did not see them real well. As difficult as it is to count 3 or 5 whales, I can’t image their counts for whales are very accurate. These were smaller whales with a fin sticking up out of the water making them look similar to a dolphin. The Humpback whales are big, but were allusive like they were on the other boat trip I took. We saw several blows (where they shoot water up into the air), but not much of the whale up close. The good thing about this boat was it was real patience and we would wait around several minutes to see if they would come back up next to us.

The animals I liked the best were the porpoises. They played along the boat for a ways. They would swim alongside the boat then jump up and dive or they would swim under one of the runners and jump out ahead of us. I was near the front of the boat on the first deck then and they were just right there. I should have gotten a lot of great pictures, but they were so fast I mostly took pictures of the water where they had been. I couldn’t believe how fast they were. The mountain goat was standing right at the edge of a tall cliff outlined against the sky. It would have been a great picture, if I had a much better camera. He was so far away I could hardly see him in my camera. There were steep cliffs just thick with birds and they would take this big boat up to 20 feet or so of them. We also seen high on a cliff on a rather small island abandoned gun placements and bunkers from World War II. It was hard to imagine building those up there or being up there on lookout.

The tidal glaciers were very impressive. They come clear down to the water. Even though we only got to within 1/3 of a mile of the glaciers they seemed a lot closer as they are so big. We spent about 15 -20 minutes at each one. I was glad we did, as people were so noisy it took that long to really hear the glaciers. They creak and groan most of the time and then when some ice falls there is a cracking sound followed by a small thunder when the ice hits the water. Because of the distance you see the ice hit the water well before you hear it. While we did not see any really big pieces fall, we saw several different pieces fall. It is kind of hard to get them on camera. There were a lot of chucks of ice in the water and you could hear it clang off the boat pretty good when we ran over them. Most were a foot to 4 foot in size. We wondered how big a piece he could hit before it caused a problem with the boat. The ranger talked about how much the glaciers had changed just this year. One had a large section of rock that was just exposed in the last 3 weeks previously having 50 to 200 feet of ice on it. The first time those rocks had seen sunshine in thousands of years. The other one had developed a fairly significant river coming out under the side of it in just in the last week.

Overall it was a very enjoyable day. Even though the sun shone most of the day and the temperature was in the high 60’s, it was kind of cold in the wind. I liked standing outside, but had to go in some to get warmed up, even though I had my jacket and sweatshirt on. It met two guys from NE on the boat. One worked at the hay mills in Willow Island many years ago and knew Mom’s neighbor, a guy I used to work for. The other knew my Uncle’s brother from up in the sand hills.

Today, Aug 12th, we drove back up to Palmer. Stopped by Beluga Point to see the tide come in, missed it, and didn’t see any Beluga whales either. Bummer! Arrived back in Palmer about 3 PM and I started laundry and defrosted my refrigerator. Barbara and Tim were doing yard work. Had a nice supper and visit. Tomorrow, if the nice weather holds, Tim wants to take us up and over Hatchet Pass.