Orcas? Puffins? Day 2

National Fjords Tour

This boat ride took you around Resurrection Bay where you can catch a close up view of the Fjords and Glaciers, along with many wildlife sightings. Less than a week before, Alenka’s hostel roommate had shown her pictures of the tons of Orcas that she had seen on this boat tour, so our expectations were to see at least one, but not likely much more. The tour guides had mentioned that most of them had migrated away already, but we were still hopeful. Alenka had chosen Alaska specifically to see the Orcas (Slovenia doesn’t really have those coming into the Mediterranean) and Andreal was also big on seeing Whales. I was on the boat to see Puffins (a guaranteed no sighting) and Mountain Goats (since we had seen none on land thus far).

The views on the boat were pretty spectacular (although for the second half of the tour I just wanted to be back on solid land)

There was some interesting trivia about this plot of trees, but it’s been so long I no longer remember it.

I’m guessing it has to do with the salt water killing the roots.

Andreal is a hawk when it comes to spotting things (and I am very much not), however I was on a mountain goat sighting roll, so when she couldn’t see where I was pointing to, I grabbed the camera from her (I think the strap was still around her neck) and took some shot before we went past.  On this tour, we did get to see a bunch of mountain goats (yay)… and pretty much nothing else. No whales. No orcas. No puffins.

The return route of the tour took us across Resurrection Bay, to see a Glacier.

The water was choppy that day so the 15 minute trek across did not work in my favor. I got seasick, took a nap, and didn’t bother to venture out to see the glacier when we arrived.

We ended up hanging out there in the calm water long enough for guilt to set in and my stomach to settle so I headed out and snapped this unenthusiastic shot as we were leaving. Then we saw more goats. Yay!

By the time we reached the harbor, I was feeling better and got fired up about taking pictures of the marine loving birds.

The Lakes

After the tour, we headed for Homer.  We had a tight schedule to get to Homer before it was too late, while also having time to stop at places along the way.

Along the way, we stopped at Tern Lake, where the sun was casting an orangely glow as it neared sunset.

The swans were out and about too, closer this time 🙂

This a random mini lake near Skilak Lake.  I had a goal to stop at Skilak Lake for sunset, but it was a rather tentative drive.  We had no idea how to get there, and were winging it by watching via GPS our car get closer and closer to the giant blue area on the screen.

We managed to hit Skilak right at sunset, so we got some nice views.

By pure guessing we made it to the shore of Skilak Lake, but the sun had set and we were losing light quickly.  Still made for a nice view.

We talked to someone who told us we were driving along a stretch of road during primo wildlife spotting time, (Lynx, Moose, Bears) except we didn’t see any. After the lack of wildlife on the boat ride, and the lack of wildlife in the primo spot at the primo time, we were skeptical that Alaska had any wild moose. It amused me that we saw more land animals (aka Mountain Goats) from a boat than we did on land.