Kenai Fjords National Park

“Some feel the rain, others just get wet.” says John Muir. Sorry to say Mr. Muir, I fall in “others” category. No matter how hard I try to appreciate rain, I always fail at it. Only thing I enjoy doing while it is raining is to get inside the blanket and sleep but I did not go to Alaska to do that. Second day of the trip and it was still raining. Was it going to be this way the whole trip? This question started to weigh me down. Anyway, me and my hubby reported to Kenai Fjords Tours office at Seward harbor at around 8:45AM. It had stopped raining for a while.

Right after boarding the cruise and getting all set to stay on water for 8 hours (well, at that time - that is what I had thought but I had forgotten one very important thing but about that, later! ) , sea otter greeted us. Tour guide told us about how they have millions of hair per square inch and how they can survive without blubber in cold water ( this will come many times, so please bear with me. :) ). Also, they do everything on their back - use it as dining table to eat shells, take their babies on back and teach them to swim. They even use rocks to break open mussels/oysters and if they like one rock, they keep it safe in between their arm and body. We observed them for 15mins and I must say, measuring at 5feet, they are pretty cute.

Cruising straight into Resurrection Bay, I was feeling like I was entering into some ghostly ocean because you know one of the charm of rain (really?) is to make everything foggy. Next stop was at the rock full of Steller sea lion - I mean hundreds of them. It did not look like they come into endangered species category. Scientists are still researching why their population declined by 80% in last 30 years. Was I thankful for my heavy binoculars now? Yes - I was. When I saw them through binocs - I found out that they all had upped their neck to look at us. Sight of seeing them gliding smoothly into the water was a pleasant one. It feels so different to see wild life in natural habitat rather than zoo. It makes us realize how they are part of this world and not something which is for our entertainment.

The Northwestern Fjords cruise that we had taken takes passengers to spectacular Northwestern most end of the Kenai Fjords foraging through three tidewater glaciers. Floating on the smooth Resurrection Bay waters and seeing porpoises play with our boat for 2-3 miles, I was actually starting to enjoy the trip. All the feelings of rain playing foul were started to take backseat in my mind. May be, that is why when captain announced that to reach to northwestern most end, cruise has to go through rough waters of Gulf of Alaska and today it was more rougher than it usually is, I totally ignored it.

So, it all started once we started to ride on rough waters. Remember adventure rides we take in Six Flags and all? It gets over in 2 to 3mins. Well, this was more worse than an adventure ride and continued for almost half an hour. All the food that I had taken since morning ( it was only one muffin and 2-3 cups of coffee ) was swirling around in my stomach and I could feel it coming till my neck. Drinking ginger ale and standing on the back-side of the cruise to breath fresh air for half an hour, I felt a bit better. Also, we reached our first glacier - Holgate glacier. Captain had changed the plan because of weather and instead took us to different glaciers. Holgate glacier was huge....really huge and beautiful and awesome.

After two more glaciers - Aialik and Pederson glacier - they were equally beautiful and awesome, we turned back. Back into rough waters. Oh my God, oh my God. This time I was feeling even worse. I ran out to the deck to - you know, throw up and i did. I did it like three times. I was feeling like I am going to die. Somebody told me to see still objects but there was nothing still. Water was having wild, wild waves and sky was full of moving ( or were they running?) clouds. Thank God - my hubby was with me the whole time - even when I was grossing out with all the vomit and all. Yuck!!! He stood close to me the whole time, holding my head some times and hand other times - that was impressive. Now to think about it, he had put classic Mills and Boons character to shame with his behavior. :)

Experiencing three glaciers and three vomiting attacks, I reached to Seward harbor at nearly 5:15PM. My dear Mr. Mills and Boons took me to the store to buy sea-sickness tablet (because, you know we were going on Cruise next day too.). We boarded the park connections bus from Seward to come back to Anchorage. Not willing to go to “pppppssshhh - good luck with that!!” hotel again, we booked another hotel in Anchorage Downtown and called it quits for the day.