Page 9 of 15
Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Where I jumped and I dove through the moon and the rocks and the fish and the stars
Your patience has finally paid off. After enduring all those pictures featuring glaciers and trees and rocks and fjords and, well, not all that much else, we're finally coming to the good stuff. Picture after picture of cute (often fluffy) wild animals cleverly posing among all those glaciers and trees and rocks and fjords that (thanks to the last page) you already know all about.
We'll start our big bad fjord wildlife extravaganza with a happy fluffy sea otter cleverly posing in the grey ice waters of Resurrection Bay, looking at the people on the boat with almost as much interest as we spent looking at him (or her). The national park naturalist who was traveling with the boat said that the otters suffered worst among animals from the Exxon Valdez oil spill close to 20 years ago, that their constant self cleaning just didn't seem to go all that well after they were all loaded up with crude oil. Luckily for all the oil is long gone and the otters are back, although still not quite as strong as they used to be.
The only thing better than one slightly out of focus bald eagle sitting in a tree is two slightly out of focus bald eagles sitting in two trees.
I had expected to see more bald eagles than I did during my time in the Kenai. Other people I had talked to who had visited Alaska before (including some I met who were even visiting Alaska at the same time as me) saw swarms of the unruly feathered (possibly fluffy) beasts at every turn. As common as pigeons they all told me, you'll get tired of seeing them after a while they all said. For reasons that still do not make sense to those overconfident others, the eagles avoided me most of the time, maybe they just sensed something that told them to just keep away from the guy with the camera. Still over time I was still able to see enough eagles during that time in the Kenai, every single one of them closer than any bald eagle I had ever seen before.
Harbor seals might not be fluffy but they're still pretty damn cute, especially the baby one.
These real life puffins were happily enjoying themselves off the coast of the Chiswell Islands until our big mean boat motored up along side of them, forcing them to fly away and land in another, completely different section of the Pacific just a few hundred feet away.
Not too far from the rookery that I grew accustomed to watching back at the hotel in Seward on channel 6, a group of loud sea lions yell at each other, possibly for reasons that trace back to their ancient territorial instincts or possibly because there's just nothing else to do. Hard to tell.
Kenai Fjords and the Chiswell Islands are home to an especially strong coastal bird population, one of the driving forces behind the need to federally protect the land with both the National Park and the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Out on the Chiswell Islands, a group of Common Auks take advantage of the distinct geological features of the cliff to try and prove once and for all that there's nothing all that common about an Auk after all.
The best whale picture I have ever taken or expect to ever take.
The waters of the Gulf of Alaska off of Seward are rich with wildlife including both Killer and Humpback Whales. After seeing all the Killer Whales I could have hoped for off Victoria (way back on Page 3), I was not all too excited when the naturalist notified us that a humpback was sighted off the bow. My level of excitement quickly changed when I realized it was not just a whale but possibly the happiest whale ever. As part of a ritual that he (or she) must have repeated at least ten times, the whale would swim on its back near the surface with its flippers out and banging against the water, then dive deep (splashing its tail on the way down) only to resurface and breach a few minutes later. Excitedly I took picture after picture, including lots and lots of unrecognizable splashes and this one- a surprisingly graceful moment in time caught right before another inevitable and unrecognizable splash.
One could argue that the best whale picture I have ever taken or expect to ever take isn’t all that great of a picture. It’s a bit out of focus, the sky/lighting conditions are nothing special and the zoom could have zoomed in just a bit more. But to prove the point that I’m just never going to top that last whale picture, here’s a few more shots of that super happy whale doing what he (or she) does best.
After (about) sixty pictures, this is the last one of the ocean and the last one of the Kenai (at least for a while). As the boat finishes up its eight hour tour and the mountains start to disappear in the eventual and unstoppable rain, it's finally time to move on.
Denali National Park pictures start on the next page.
