Cruising Resurrection Bay

 

Our last full day we had a Kenai National Park tour planned which included looking for sea wildlife and whales in Resurrection Bay and then sailing into the Gulf of Alaska to the fjord containing the Aialik Glacier.  We had high hopes of seeing whales, seals, otters and touring through the bird rookeries in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge to view several varieties of birds including puffins.  

 

If I learned one thing about Alaska, don’t go on tours in the morning; wait until the afternoon for the best possible weather.  We scheduled for the 11:30 cruise and arrived with coats, rain slickers, hats, gloves and camera equipment in hand. 

 

 

 

 

True to form, the weather was overcast and cold in the morning, but shortly after leaving the sky opened up and we had beautiful weather. 

We had heard that once you crossed from the protection of Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska, the waters were very rough.  Prior to the trip almost everyone we met who had been mentioned seasickness and told us to make sure we took Dramamine.  You don’t have to tell me twice!  Tony, Crissy and I started taking the non-drowsy Dramamine the night before and by the time I got on the boat, I could have cared less about whales, I just needed a nap!  So much for the non-drowsy formula.  However, the sea air, blue skies and the first sighting of a whale put me back in gear, get out that camera! 

 

Orca breaking the water with two others beneath.  You can just see the white of their bellies thru the water.



Whales and Puffins

 

As it turned out, the Captain of the boat told us that it was one of the smoothest days on the ocean that she had experienced.  That was a good thing! 

During the tour we saw lots of sea animals up close.

Nesting Seagulls and chicks

Sea Lions

Mountain Goat

Puffins in the Bird Rookeries.

Harbor Seals



Dall Porpoise

 

Otter just floating with the current.

 

Otter calling for it's friend.

Kiss me!

 We also had some beautiful scenery at the Aialik Glacier, with lots of calving activities occurring while we were there. 

Kayakers by Aialik Glacier

 

 

Alaskan Amber our new favorite beer.

  

As we pulled into the harbor on a sea of glass we saw eagles soaring overhead, the perfect ending to a perfect day. 

 

What to bring to Alaska to get good photos?

Over the winter, I started planning for the photography at Brooks Falls.  I needed more zoom and researched telephoto lens on the market.  Not wanting to spend $10,000 on a “hobby” lens, I finally settled on a new Sigma 50-500mm Telephoto Zoom Lens, which is effectively 750mm on my camera. It’s a big lens to me, but one of the smaller of the large zoom lens; 4.3 lbs by itself but it can be handheld and still get decent shots.  Between my older Nikon D90 and this lens, I sacrificed speed, but I still get some great pictures and you just have to remember it’s a hobby not a career! 

So, all winter I have practiced with this lens, determining what settings work well, practicing on birds in motion,

Osprey with fish at Wakodahatchee 

as well as stationary birds

Tricolor Heron at Wakodahatchee

or nesting birds in Florida, trying to get interesting shots. 

Great Blue Herons at Wakodahatchee

It was over the winter that we found several bird rookeries in Florida and I practiced there every week, becoming a birder along the way.

Great White Egret at Wakodahatchee trying to attract a mate.

Our trip was ultimately a month long and included a week on a Princess cruise.  However, for us, hiking clothes, photo equipment and technology stuff was more important than formal wear, so we opted for hiking boots rather than high heels, Columbia tek shirts rather than dress shirts and rain slickers and packable down vests rather than sports coats.  We still had TOO MUCH luggage, but with some creative storing of luggage along the way, it worked and we were happy.

In June when visiting my brother Bob in Richmond for Alec’s graduation, I entertained myself taking pictures of his resident hawk.  After aiming up at a tree limb for 15 minutes with my 50-500 lens, waiting for the hawk to do something, I realized I couldn’t hold it for hours on end as I would need to for a 3 day trip to Brooks Falls.  At that point, I knew that a tripod would be a must and had to look for a quick solution.

 I opted for a travel tripod, which I later decided was a little too small for my lens fully extended.   I also wanted a gimbal head on the tripod to be more flexible when wildlife was moving.  I don't think I would have been able to get Bald Eagle in flight shots at Brooks Falls without it. 

On the cruise I watched this poor man trying to photo whales with a ball head on a tripod, every time he got it readjusted - the whales had disappeared under the water.  He was very frustrated.  I was glad I opted for a small Jobu gimbal head that works perfect on the travel tripod and a welcome addition to my Florida setup.  Tony’s my photosherpa schlepping my Florida tripod; however, he has limits as to just how much of stuff he will sherp!

 

There were a few big shooters at Brooks, including a video team making a Disney documentary.  But surprisingly, my setup was in the top 10% and was manageable as compared to the big guy's monster lenses and tripods!  Managing a larger tripod on the deck would have been very difficult with all those people, so compact was good.   

 

 

 So I thought some of my photographer friends might be interested in what I used to get the pictures of the bears.  It’s a lot of stuff to schlepp around for a month.  But we got some great pics and video and I used all the equipment at some point or another. Below is a picture of what was in my 21” carry-on which weighed about 30 lbs.

See the packing list below

Of course, for those people who don’t want to carry around 30 lbs of “stuff”, you can always get the same camera that we bought Crissy for her birthday, a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ200. 

 

 

With its f 2.8, 600 mm lens and its quick shot to shot ratio, Crissy used that the entire trip and had some beautiful pictures.  Much lighter and flexible!  I keep convincing myself my equipment is superior, but sometimes it’s hard to tell! 

 Here’s my packing list of photographic equipment; (2 cameras, 1 video camera and 1 smart phone):

Nikon D90 Camera

·  portable Nikon battery charger

·  4  Nikon EN-EL3E batteries
·  Kata KT PL-A-18 Pro-Light Access-18 Holster

·  Tamron 515 camera case

·  Nikon AF Fisheye 10.5mm Lens

·  Tamron 18-270MM F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Lens-(this is my go-to, all around lens)

   § 72mm UV filter

   § 72mm circular polarizer filter

   § 72 mm graduated ND filter

·  Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM SLD Ultra Telephoto Zoom Lens

  § 96 mm UV filter

  § 96 mm circular polarizer filter

·  Jobu Jr 3 Deluxe Gimbal Head with Integrated Quick Release

·  Dolica Traveler Tripod, carbon fiber w/ ball head and monopod   Model: CX600B502D/S  Great tripod, but too light to regularly use with a 500 mm lens. 

·  Joby-UltraFit Sling Strap for Women

·   Joby Ultraplate Quick Release (to use with strap)

·  150MM LP-150 Lens Plate Quick Release Arca Swiss

·  OP/TECH USA 4701102 Media Card Holder with 2 pockets

·  SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB SDHC memory card 95x

·  4 SanDisk 32GB Extreme SDHC memory card 45X

·  Kata KT PL-A-18 Pro-Light Access-18 Holster 

Sony Handycam HDR-PJ260 w/projector built in

·  Handycam case w/ carabineer clip

·  Portable battery charger

·  2 batteries

·  2 SanDisk 32GB SDHC memory cards 

Nikon Coolpix AW100 Waterproof Camera , great camera in the rain or on the water, also great for non slr people you ask to take pictures of you!

·  Camera case w/ carabineer clip

·  Portable battery charger

·  Memory card

·  2 batteries 

Samsung Galaxy S4 phone camera

·  32 GB Micro SD card

·  Micro SD reader

·  Nikon D90 downloaded as a PDF

·  Charger

·  Mini tripod for phone

Miscellaneous

·  uNu Enerpak Vault Dual-Portable Battery Pack for Smartphones and Tablets

·  Dry Bag 20L, perfect in rainy weather or in plane pontoons

·  Manfrotto 088LBP Adapter 1/4-Inch- 20 to 3/8-Inch with flange

·  Hiking pole that doubles as a monopod

·  Laptop

·  Laptop Charger

·  External hard drive  for extra pictures

·  2 Rain Sleeves for camera with lens

·  Head lamp-for looking at pictures on laptop after everyone’s asleep

·  2 smaller dry sacks and 2 neoprene bags for lens and accessories

·  Soft sided duffel bag to recombine items outside of suitcase

 

Seward; Land of Glaciers and Sea Life.

Seward is a must visit city in Alaska; beautiful scenery and being on the shores of some of the best marine wildlife in Alaska.  The city also serves as the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and is a popular retreat for Alaskans.   The city also serves as the southern terminus of the 1,100 mile Iditarod National Historic Trail to Nome.  Due to its location at the end of the fjord, Seward was greatly impacted by the Good Friday Earthquake in 1964 that also hit Anchorage, 90% of the town was destroyed by fire and tidal waves.

Seward was like many of the coastal towns; cloudy in the morning and clearing later in the day.  We left in the fog for Exit Glacier, located 10 miles from downtown Seward. 

 

 Exit Glacier, located in Kenai Fjords National Park, is part of the massive Harding Ice Field which has countless alpine and tidewater glaciers that pour down into coastal fjords.  Exit Glacier is one of the few glaciers that you can hike to and it was an easy one mile hike from the visitor center. 

As part of the exhibit on the road leading from the visitor center there were signs along the way showing the location of the glacier at different time periods in the past century, it has receded 1 ½ miles since 1915.



Moose horns at the Exit Glacier Visitor Center

We then made our way back to Seward to visit the Alaska Sea Life Center, Alaska’s only public aquarium and ocean wildlife rescue center.  Their exhibits included sea lions, harbor seals, and a variety of sea birds including one of my favorite, puffins.  I had no idea that the Stellar Sea Lions in the region were so large, males are around 9 feet long and 1,500 pounds as compared to the smaller harbor seal which are 375 pounds and 6 1/2 feet long.  While it wasn’t a huge center, it had lots of interesting exhibits

and information about the area, some interactive sea pools and aquariums with the native sea life there. 

 

 

 

Their aviary included a large ocean tank where they had several species of puffins.  Puffins are very awkward on land but totally at home in the water. 

 

It was so entertaining watching them interact with each other on land and then dive into the water and swim with ease. 

Their area had a two story tank where you could go to the lower level and watch them dive and swim with ease.  The tank gave you a different perspective than just seeing them from the top of the water.




Puffin diving in the aquarium tank. 

After a full day in Seward, we looked forward to the next day, cruising Resurrection Bay and looking for whales and glaciers. 

 

 

 

 

 

Saying Goodbye to Brooks Falls and the Bears and onto Seward

The first two days at Brooks Falls was absolutely gorgeous, blue skies, bright sunshine from morning to night.  It was even warm!  The day that we left the sky was a little overcast, giving us a different perspective of the falls.  That last morning only one bear was at the falls.  We saw more salmon jumping in the two hours that we were at the falls that day than the entire time we were there.  The salmon definitely knew the bear were elsewhere and they took advantage of that. 

After saying goodbye to new acquaintances, we departed in float planes from the beach. 

 

We had a larger plane for the trip back, everyone on this flight had flown to Katmai the same day as the plane accident.  Everyone was happy about the larger plane, especially us! 

 

We met a lot of nice people at Katmai.  There was  Dick from the San Francisco who would make sure I got a space on the lower viewing platform

 

 and Carla who was by herself camping and was going further to camp at the remote Lake Clark NP.

Tony and Carla on the trip back

It’s such a small world, we met Dr. Luzuriaga a dentist from Westminster and his family.  He went to school with our dentist, Dr. Necciai.   We arrived at the same time as a group traveling from Natural Habitat led by Eric Rock, their head naturalist.  They were winding up a two week wildlife photo tour, which sounded like a wonderful tour.  As we recognized that Eric knew the ropes, when things were going bad at King Salmon on the way over, we followed him! 

 

Another new friend, Jose was camping and we kept running into him at the lodge charging batteries.  Crissy and I spent a couple hours with him, the three of us with our laptops looking through our respective pictures, showing each other our “greatest shots” as we discovered them.  He shared this one with me, of the bear stalking him on the trail. 

The flight back to Anchorage via King Salmon was eventless, thank god!  In Anchorage we finally got some “wheels” to finish out our Alaskan adventure.  On our own schedule now, we had a full day planned for the trip to Seward to pack in as much as possible.  With a quick stop at Potter’s Marsh, we looked for birds and moose, but only saw a train. 

  With little luck, we then moved down to Girdwood where Crissy crossed panning for gold off her bucket list at the Crow Creek Mine.  It was the most picturesque mine I have ever seen.  Much different than the Porcupine Creek Mine I had seen on Discovery Channel.  Crissy and Tony panned for gold and I took pictures.  I was hoping they would find enough gold to pay for our trip.  No such luck!

 

 

 



Crissy with the only flakes she found at the training session

We headed down the Seward Scenic Highway towards Portage Glacier.  The highway was aptly named, with lush green lowlands, lakes lined with fireweed and beautiful mountains all the way to Seward.  A quick stop at a popular roadside lookout, Beluga Point to look for Beluga Whales.  In this area where the Turnagain Arm narrows, Beluga Whales and the tidal bore are both visible at times.  No luck there either, so off to Portage for the boat cruise to the glacier. 

The tide is coming in and no whales.  Ugly grey water, but the perfect spawning grounds for the Beluga Whales.

We arrived at the visitor center and purchased tickets.  We were just in time for the 1:30 cruise, so we boarded the two leveled boat, opting for the open air deck. 

 

It was a beautiful day; brilliant sunshine and blue skies.  The Portage Glacier sat on a small lake and required a boat to get close to the face of the glacier.  The area around the lake was surrounded by mountains with beautiful and topped with glaciers higher on those mountains. 

Evidently the glacial ice there supported life; ice worms.  These small worms lived in the ice their entire life and resemble a thin black thread about ½ inch long.  I wouldn’t have know it was a worm unless they told us.  Evidently they are in a lot of glaciers, so why did  they try to get us to drink the melted glacial water in Skagway!  If exposed to temperatures higher than 32 degrees, they dissolve. 

 A nice short cruise, a calving or two , a few pictures of us and blue ice and we are off again. 

 

 

 

That blue ice I was looking for!

We stopped at the park headquarters for Portage Glacier and Chugash State Park, which surrounded the area of Portage Glacier.  Chugash State Park is 5 million acres, bigger than Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier NP combined.  It is huge and beautiful with many glaciers and glacial lakes!  Too bad we didn’t have more time to explore, just time for a National Parks Passport stamp.

 

On our way to Seward we stopped for ice cream at the cutest little complex with lots of carved bears incorporated into the cabins.

I was having bear withdrawal, hadn't seen a bear in 24 hours!

On the train heading to Denali I had seen some Trumpeter Swans, which are fairly rare in the lower 48.  They are beautiful birds and would have babies at this time of year.  I inquired if Eric from Natural Habitat knew of any areas where there were swans on our trip to Seward.  He referred us to a wetlands area on the way.  We found the area and pulled over to investigate.  Not too far from the boardwalk we saw a pair of swans with 4 babies or cygnets.   They were so cute and the area was just beautiful. 

We pulled into Seward late in the day.  Tony and I took a walk into town and found the marina.  There were many boats of all sizes, from small personal boats to cruise ships. 

Seward is supported by tourism, fishing and fish processing.  Seward is a huge sportsman fishing area and the marina is the jump off point for some of the best Halibut, Salmon, Rockfish and Lingcod fishing in the world.  At $300 a pop, there are more than enough fisherman and charters to keep the port being one of the top three in Alaska.  Add a cruise ship or two and the wealth of wildlife that has vacationers taking Glacier, Whale and Wildlife Watching tours and this town is hopping.

While the dock area was permeated with the smell of fish, my favorite thing to do there was to stop by when the dock area after the fishing boats returned with their catches.  Crews would unload huge hauls of salmon and halibut into plastic tubs and push them up the plank to the dock.  On each dock before the fish were taken to be cleaned, they would dump all the fish out on the deck by the trophy rack and the first mate would carefully take each fish and arrange them for the official photo. 

With the skill of an artist, they would creatively arrange the catch on the trophy hooks, sorting by size and variety.  I actually found the process as interesting as the final product; it appeared to be their creative outlet!  Once arranged and hung, the fish were rinsed off and the proud fisherman would stand by their catch, getting their photos to commemorate the day. 

 

We were able to get pictures of two catches, but don’t wait too long, as soon as they say cheese, the fish start coming down.  Then the fish were carted off to the fish cleaners who prepped the fish for freezing and shipping. 

The whole process reminded me of when I was a kid at Bethany Beach, Delaware.  We fished at Indian River for flounder when on vacation there.  My Dad would take pictures of us with the largest fish we caught too! 

Brother Bob with his catch on my famous little green fishing rod. 

 

Jo Ann with her catch of the day

We also liked walking the path that followed the water’s edge.  We occasionally saw an eagle or sea otters and tons of sea gulls.  The mountains that surrounded the bay were covered with snow or glaciers and made for beautiful scenery. 

 

Seward is a RV paradise with a large portion of the town along the water front set up as RV campsites, complete with fire pits for each along the water.  Great views along the shore and a nice place to warm up with marshmallows, suddenly I missed our little camper. 

Finally liberated from tours and public transportation, we had a full day behind us.  I was in heaven, being able to stop wherever we wanted, being able to eat and drink whatever and whenever and beautiful weather; it was a great day!  Seward is the end of the road from Anchorage.  It was interesting, and much more diverse and beautiful than I imagined it would be.  We were looking forward to exploring the area in the days to come and as Frank Sinatra would say “and do it my way”.