May 23 Seward and a 6 hour boat ride

Hi to my faithful readers! You know who you are.

 I need to back up to yesterday. 

Left in the morning on this small boat that holds 6 passengers.  We left the dock about 8am. It was a pretty chilly day with a choppy NE wind. Headed out Resurrection Bay in to Gulf of Alaska. We were out there baby!!!

Our first sighting of a Humpback Whale. It never breached, but it did get rather close to the boat. I was so excited I couldn't get my camera out in time. We saw Tufted Puffins, Sea Lions sunning themselves on the rocks,  Otters floating on their backs, and a mountain goat. The whale did give us a nice tail wave as we road by. When the Captain saw any whales she would immediately turn off the engine and we would float until the whale passed at a safe distance. These animals are so stinkin' cool...and big!

This big boy was just enjoying the beautiful day. His friend was up the hill a bit

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Our boat was driven by a female Captain. In fact a lot of women are boat captains up here. Very capable and knowledgeable. The fun thing about taking a smaller boat was that we could talk to them and get lots of information about the area and the animals we were seeing. Plus they were just wonderful!!!

This was one of our highlights. Seeing this massive glacier. The thunder as it calved was eerie. Alaskan's call it "the great white thunder." This was called the Aialik Glacier and drains into the Harding Icefield. It is the largest glacier in the Aialik Bay in the Kenai Fjord National Park.

We road about 30 miles to the glacier and on the way back we saw a pod of Orca Whales. 

So exhausted. But, not to sleep. Got in the camper and drove to a gravel pit for the night. UNBELIEVABLE

Evan having his morning coffee. Not a bad view!

Out our window.

The ice melting off the pond. The day we were having trouble with the wind on Thursday is the same wind that pushed this ice off the lake onto shore.

It was a beautiful place to stay. And a little bonus God placed in our laps was a couple of Christian families that were there too. They asked us to come over to their campsite and have smores with them. So, so fun to meet kindred spirits in the Last Frontier. They gave us their names and phone numbers and told us the if we had ANY trouble to call them. And you know, they really meant it. 😇🙏💗