We had a wonderful boat tour to see Kenai Fjords National Park!! It is a magical place with glaciers and wildlife!! The tour was all day and provided lunch and dinner. It was cloudy for the entire day and rainy at times. It was quite cold for most of the day while we were outside on the boat deck enjoying Alaska. Having lived so much of our lives in Arizona and Texas, being cold on July 12th is quite a novel experience!We cannot get enough of seeing the amazing glaciers in Alaska!We were amazed to see the cave that had developed in the base of the glaciers. Several chunks of ice feel into the water while we were there.
There was quite a bit of ice that had fallen into the water.It is amazing to look up at the wall of the glacier!At one point this glacier reached the water below, but it has receded a little each year recently.The tour company fished out a piece of ice from the water and Charlene had fun touching the ice with her tongue!! Apparently, some people collect glacier ice for margaritas. Out of all the people on our tour boat, Charlene was given the honor as the person who threw the ice back into the water!Here the ice goes back into the water!!When parts of the glacier break off and fall into the water it is quite loud and seems to echo all around!It is amazing to look up at the wall of ice towering about you!Sea otters are bashful creatures. We found this cute guy merrily floating along.The sea otter turned around to look at us and then quickly went under water.The Alaskan scenes of water, mountains, and greenery truly amaze me!The overcast skies and low clouds gave some interesting scenes. Alaska is beautiful!The waterfalls into the sea are gorgeous!These tiny islands do not seem to have much soil, but the trees grow right out of the rocks!The boat captain pointed out that this small island looks like an elephant!The misty scenes is Alaska are beautiful to behold. Although we could have gone inside the boat and warmed up, we simply needed to stay on the open deck to enjoy God’s creation in Alaska.We were delighted to have found two humpback whales enjoying themselves!! Here they are both spouting water into the air.It is truly inspiring to catch a glimpse of the whale’s tail as they leisurely swim along.It is a photographer’s delight to actually catch a view of their tail!The boat captain was gracious and we waited to see if the whales would lift any part of the bodies up out of the water.The whales moved around and I was able to see it in time to capture this special moment. I love seeing the water flowing off of the end of this tail.The whale gave us a fun show and lifted his tail a little higher into the air.Then the whale shifted and started to swim deeper.He tipped his tail as he went along
He waved goodbye as he swam below.Here is another time when the whales spouted water into the air.While we were waiting to see if the whales would surface again, the beautiful tufted puffin bird stopped by to visit. I love the orange coloring!We captured another glimpse of a whale tail above the surface!Amazingly, the whale then rolled over and showed us his fins!!This whale scene was breathtaking!The people on this boat were shocked when the whale came to the surface right next to them!!This was a final view of the whale. Everyone on the boat concluded that the whale was waving goodbye to us!We next saw sea lions! This guy was proudly perched high on a rock looking out into the sea.We were amazed to see so many sea lions!It was fascinating to watch this awkward and amazing creatures in the wild!This big guy was unbelievable huge!!There was a large variation in the size and color of the sea lions.This big guy seemed to be barking at everyone telling them to not panic that a boat was drifting by. The captain asked everyone to be quiet so we would not frighten them.The small black sea lions are the babies. The colony is doing very well in Kenai Fjords National Park.
Fiesta on Wheels 