Visited: Wednesday, July 12, 2023 - Friday, July 14, 2023
The real visit of the park was on Thursday; on Wednesday, we saw the visitor center, and we'll go again very briefly tomorrow. But today we took an eight-and-a-half hour boat ride, getting in to the Northwestern Glacier (named after the school, which mildly surprised me), which was spectacular. And - not the highlight of the trip. We saw puffins and sea otters and harbor seals and Stellar Sea Lions and cormorants. Probably thousands of puffins. And that still wasn't the highlight. We saw _three_ pods of orcas - two resident, one transient - all right up close. And that _still_ wasn't the highlight, at least for me. We saw a pod of ~10 humpback whales, hunting by bubble net. Which was simply amazing to see - among other things, it's _not_ often seen in Alaska. (From Wikipedia: "Bubble net feeding does not occur everywhere. Alaska's cold waters and the high amounts of sun exposure in the summer time produce food for humpbacks.") But we saw it - and it was awesome. The whole day was fantastic. In spite of the fact that I'm not fond of long boat rides, this might have ben my favorite of the parks in Alaska.
No comments:
Post a Comment