Kenai Fjords

We rode down the Kenai Peninsula in a bus under cloudy skies. We boarded a catamaran in Seward and proceeded out to Resurection Bay. This was our third trip to tidewater glaciers, and the only time when the gloomy overcast persisted.

Our captain was very talkative and she got us quickly to Rugged Island, where we lingered to watch a pod of fin whales who lazily blew and dove repeatedly. This pod has apparently been hanging around the bay this summer and I'm guessing she's seen them before and was in communication with the captain of another tour boat that was also observing the whales because she headed straight for them for 20 minutes.

Fin Whale

These are huge whales, and I have some shots with at least three animals together. The National Park Service posted online that they've seen as many as six of them.

Two Fin Whales Blowing

Once it seemed they went deep, a humpback whale appeared, repeatedly blowing and diving . It eventually showed its fluke, indicating the start of a deep dive, but then the fin whales reappeared, so we watched them a while longer. Eventually we moved on to another pair of humpbacks, including one that was repeatedly smacking its pectoral fins on the water with huge splashes that were clearly audible. This trip reinforced something that I already knew: it's hard to shoot an animal that has most of its body under water. I've previously tried to photograph manatees and beavers, with limited success because there's hardly anything above the water. Add the difficulty of shooting from a moving boat, one that's also pitching and rolling, and it's just about impossible to keep the horizon line level. So, I have some action shots that don't show much, and the horizons are all off.

Humpback Whale Extending its Pectoral Fin

Slamming the Water

Starting a Deep Dive

We proceeded to more islands where we watched puffins. I had always wondered how they could fly with such stubby wings. Answer: not well. It looked more like an uncontrolled fireworks rocket than a graceful flight. They beat their wings so fast that they look frantic. One seemed to have eaten so much that it couldn't lift off from the water; it kept skipping like a stone, repeatedly lifting a few inches above the water then bouncing off the surface again and again. They flitted around us everywhere. The poor light, their small size and eratic flight, and black and white plumage made them difficult subjects. Add the rolling motion of the boat, and the result is only a few barely usable images.

Puffins in Flight

It was a bit easier to get shots of the birds on land.

Puffins on the Rocks

On to Aialik Glacier... By now we had already visited Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay, and we had also seen quite a few other glaciers from a distance, so this was no longer a novelty. However, we saw lots of sea otters.

Aialik Glacier

Sea Otters

Aialik Glacier

Glacier Ice

Aialik Glacier

As we exited Aialik Bay, we stopped to check out the Steller Sea lions who had hauled out in large numbers on a rocky island. They were really loud, with two males vocalizing to establish dominance.

Steller Sea Lions Facing Off

And then the show was over as we headed back to Seward. This was one of my favorite outings of the whole trip to Alaska, bested only by the day in Tracy Arm.

College Fjord

After leaving Glacier Bay, we headed out to sea. I noticed these mountains, part of the Fairweather Range. Then it was an overnight sail to Prince William Sound, followed by a slow daytime approach to College Fjord. For the third time in three glacier approaches, we had low overcast skies the cleared as we got to the glaciers. Again we approached in green water that gave way to milky brown silted water. Again there were seals on ice. And again we stopped at the end of the channel, lingered, pivoted, and left. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Glacier Bay

As with other mornings on this trip, I woke up to find the ship moving slowly with mountains and shoreline visible through the window. I got up, grabbed the camera, and went up to the topmost deck to get a sense of where we were and what there was to see. We were in Glacier Bay, moving slowly, and surrounded by mountains, playing Dall porpoises, and occasional harbor seals.

Glacier Bay

I saw this seal playing in the water and grabbed a shot of it jumping toward the ship.

Jumping Harbor Seal

The water color again transitioned from gray to green.

Glacier Bay

Eventually we approached some of the many glaciers and stopped dead in the water. It was COLD. The weather this day went from cloudy to start to sunny when it counted. We sat there for quite a while looking at the glacier and ice all around us.

Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay

After some time, the ship used thrusters to pivot in place, and then we exited that part of the bay. We turned into another arm (Johns Hopkins) and saw yet more glaciers. Finally, we headed back out the way we came. Here are some of my favorite shots from this amazing place.

Bald Eagle on Ice

Glacier Bay

Lynn Canal and Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve

One of the cruise stops was Skagway. We had an excursion to the Chilkat preserve nearby, so we boarded the fast ferry to Haines. By now we were used to seeing lots of eagles and other wildlife, and the ferry ride was no exception. The Lynn canal is a beautiful waterway with steep walls and waterfalls. There were eagles and harbor seals along the route.

Chilkat was a bust. We boarded a bus in Haines and rode along the river to a sightseeing business. There, we boarded a flat bottomed boat with jet motors to cruise the shallow river. We got a glimpse of a massive terrestrial glacier in the distance on a mountain, and we saw one eagle perched in a tree. And that was about it. The guide stopped at a few empty eagle nests. We saw almost no wildlife. Finally, we went back to the dock, really disappointed. As we ate lunch, the business owner put on a show. He spotted an eagle sitting in a nearby tree, so he pulled out some fish from the refrigerator, injected 3 of them with air using a syringe, and one at a time he tossed them into the river. Each time, the eagle took flight, plucked the fish (which floated because of the injected air) from the water, ate the fish in flight, then landed back on its original perch. Here's a selection of the shots I got, which were helped by the fact that I was pretty close to the action.

Slowing Down

Getting Ready to Grab

Plucking a Floating Fish

Checking the Catch

Coming Back for More

About to Snatch

About to Eat on the Fly

One More Time

Gliding Down for Food

Maneuvering

Slowing Down

Got Another Snack

Aside from the eagle feeding show, this excursion was a waste of time. Timing is everything; the Chilkat Preserve does have a lot of eagles, especially in the Fall, but we saw hardly any of them. I've seen more eagles in my neighborhood than I did in the Chilkat Preserve. I saw more eagles from the Haines ferry dock than I did in the preserve.

Tracy Arm

This was my favorite day of the trip. It was gray and dreary as we started, with intermittent rain.

Tracy Arm

Green Water in Tracy Arm

On a fast boat we headed south from Juneau to Tracy Arm, right into fog at the entrance. The water color gradually changed from dull gray to deep green. The fog and overcast weather slowly improved until we arrived at South Sawyer Glacier, where it was sunny under partly cloudy skies. The water color near the glacier was dirty/milky.

South Sawyer Glacier

The captain shut the engines down as we came to a stop a few hundred feet from the glacier face. We were surrounded by floating ice in a fjord with steep walls. I could clearly hear cracking sounds coming from the glacier, along with a steady stream of melting water and ice and rocks as it splashed into the fjord.

Meltwater Streams from Dirty Ice

The sun took the bite off the cold, but it was still chilly. I was expecting the blue ice and it was very cool to finally see it. In these shots I did not process it to bring the blue out; I merely set the white balance and added a little clarity, or boosted the whites when needed.

Dirt, Rock, and Blue Ice in South Sawyer Glacier

The glaciers that I've seen in Europe and Washington (Rainier, St. Helens) always seemed stark white, with almost no variation in color or detail. The Alaskan glaciers that I saw on this trip all had blue in the faces and streaks of dirt and rock.

After what seemed like only a few minutes, but was actually more like a half an hour, the captain started up the engines and we proceeded back the way we came toward North Sawyer Glacier.

North Sawyer Glacier

I found it difficult to judge the size of the glaciers. Here's a tour boat that's some distance away from the glacier face.

North Sawyer Glacier

At this glacier, there was a thin overcast. As we approached, we began to see ice floes with harbor seals hauled out onto the ice. Everywhere I looked, there were seal mothers with pups.

Harbor Seals

Again, the engines stopped and we lingered, surrounded by ice and seals.

North Sawyer Glacier

North Sawyer Glacier

Again, there was the popping and cracking sounds of shifting glacier ice. After we were there for a while, a piece of ice dropped from the glacier face with a continuous rumbling sound. Just when I thought the event was over, a huge piece of blue ice emerged from the water with the sound of rushing water that was running off of the ice. It was a shooter - a block of ice that calved below the surface of the water. As that died down, yet another piece of ice fell, and there was a second shooter. These were enormous pieces of beautiful blue ice that took some time to settle down and stop shedding water, with continuous sounds of moving water and rumbling. Shortly afterward, a wave of water gently rocked our boat. I can't show the whole sequence, but I'll put a few shots in.

Calving Glacier

Block of Blue Ice Emerges from Water

Glacier Shooter

We lingered a while longer, then returned to Juneau. As we approached the Stephens Passage, the clouds lowered again and we spent the rest of the trip in overcast and rain. For more than an hour, as we cruised along Stephens Passage, I watch the forest and shore go by, with dozens of eagles perched in the trees. Dall porpoises jumped in our wake. Loons and other birds dove as we approached. And occasionally there was the spewing water of a whale blowing. We were really lucky with the weather (it was great when it counted). And the shooter was amazing. I don't know how this could have been a better day.