The Fjordland Ship-Kenai Cruises

On Saturday fellow locum tenens, Jane, and I got up early to catch a train from Anchorage to Seward where we were to embark on a tour of Resurrection Bay for what was billed as a wildlife cruise (great cruise, false advertising-no wild life).
I guess airline travel and train travel have some commonalities-we had to arrive an hour early for the train....at the early, but sunny (summer in Alaska-it's sunny all the time) time of 5:30am....oh, yes, picture ID required.
It was a rocky start-Jane called-she'd overslept, so I ran to the train station a little later than the lady at Kenai Tours insisted we needed to be there. And, with Murphy's Law in operation, the parking machine would not take my $10. In fact, it initially ate the damn thing. By the time I coaxed it out of the machine there was a line of folks who had also ignored the tour directors admonishments about arrival time. In a desperate attempt to get me out of their way I was offered any number of crisper $10 bills in exchange for my sad Jackson. However, none worked and the crowded grew larger and more desperate for me to move on-however, being Alaska, everyone remained kind. In retrospect, I believe if I had continued to shove the rejected bills into the machine someone would have eventually paid my parking....but, I try to be as nice as the people I encounter here so I moved out of the way. What to do? I exchanged the rejected $10 for a nice crisp $5 and five nice crisp $1 bills that the gift shop attendant was kind enough to provide-after searching here entire cash drawer for stiff money! Next time I take the debit card!
I took my place at the back of a very long but very rapidly moving line. When it was my turn I explained Jane's predicament to the ticket taker lady and got the surprise of my life-these are not trained by the same people that train the airline ticket takers!!! She was very sympathetic, so hoping Jane would make it on time, it would be such a disappointment to miss the train ride, etc, etc. So, well, we'll just issue her boarding pass for the trip up and back and hold them at the counter in hopes Jane makes it!!! Hello! Customer service award time!!!
Jane tells me that when she ran through the door hoping to see the train still on the track the ticket lady called her over with a, "you must be Jane-I have your boarding pass." So imagine my surprise when my traveling partner showed up in the seat next to me!
Four paragraphs and we haven't left the train station yet-better go grab a cup of that good green tea and get comfy this was a great day!
Now, I have to have a say about train travel-after traveling twice by train in my life I feel qualified to say that I believe our society started going to the dogs when we stopped traveling by train. I am sure if we still used the rail system for a major form of travel the crime rate would be lower and we would all be kinder neighbors!
I LOVED IT! I am going to try to do more. Yes, I hear you saying...."but it takes so long." Yep, it does...but maybe we ought to slow down a little bit.
The pace is slow. You get a chance to observe and talk to the people around you. People are nice to each other on the train! When I traveled from Arizona to Texas with no money and no food, people fed me! And it never entered my mind that they might poison me!
There is more room and you aren't crammed up elbow to elbow with the next person-I wonder if that enforced intimacy on the airplane results in people pulling inward and ignoring the person who is elbow to elbow, hip to hip and knee to knee with you...or is it the difficulty in carrying on a conversation over the roar of engines.
The seats were so roomy and there was-are you sitting down-plenty of LEG ROOM and even a foot prop! I was in heaven...even if I didn't spend much room in my seat what with the bistro car and the dining car and the domed observation car to explore.
There was a lovely couple with a beautiful, happy, content baby....and our car B hostess who just graduated from high school and passed around her flora and fauna book and her photo album she made as a project to get this job. And we all looked at her scrapbook just like she was our favorite grandchild.
I won't go on anymore about the dining car and the bistro car and the domed viewing car and the nice roomy bathroom because I have to get to the real reason the take this particular train-
I am still breathless over the scenery!!! This is supposed to be the third most beautiful train ride in the US-I can't even imagine something more beautiful!
OK...now we'll leave the station!
Shortly after we left Anchorage we rode alongside the sea on Turnagin Arm-the road is along the water and the railroad track is somehow built between the road and the water-you are right at the water's edge. I spotted a bald eagle-well, Jane probably spotted it and pointed it out to me...I'm not good at the spotting part. And then another....and another...and another. I lost count at about 15 and we just kept seeing them! The tide was out and they were landing at the tide pools fishing, I guess.
On we went, up the mountains, along the water, past huge glaciers, around and around spiraling hairpin curves, between cuts in the mountain so close you could reach out and touch the plants, and past waterfall after waterfall.....and then when you didn't think it could get more beautiful....through a series of 5 tunnels alongside a drop away gorge with a river rushing down it.
And coming home there was even more in store! The train moved incredibly slow coming back-especially at certain areas. Especially areas were we could look down the mountain into marshy, bushy areas. Those are the areas where wildlife is spotted and the train conductor was more interested in having us see bear and moose than in getting back to Anchorage post haste! And we did!!! I was in the domed observation car when the lady in front of me yelled excitedly-"it's a bear!" "Isn't it?" Sure enough, everyone ran to the right of the train-lucky me, that's where I was sitting, and confirmed her sighting. Yes, it was a big black bear. He ambled to the edge of the brush and stood up looking back in the direction of the train. I got one blurry picture but I won't be deleting it-if you look really close you can see a big black dot-that's the bear!
Shortly after that I saw two baby moose-or is that meese-in a river down below. Being less confident than the other lady-I whispered, "moose." The man behind me-obviously a tourist-declared they were caribou. However, having lived in the big city of Anchorage I know moose! Sure enough we soon spotted the mom grazing in the thicket alongside the river-the babies went running to her! With me snapping off pictures as quickly as I could-try focusing at running moose 200 yard below you while on a moving train! Even if it slowed down-the train, not the moose...although they slowed down as soon as they got to mama-she couldn't be bothered with a train even if she noticed us.
Eventually, we got to Seward. It takes about 5 hours by train and about 2.5 by car....but, you couldn't see all this wonderful stuff!
There we boarded the Fjordland cruise boat for a day in Resurrection Bay. We headed out about an hour to Fox Island where we disembarked for a lunch of salmon and a 20 minute presentation by our Park Ranger/biologist, Colleen. I have a picture of her wearing her "welcome aboard hat." She changes to a cap after we are underway as the hat would blow off...she explained there are rules about which hat she wears when....stupid!
On the way out of the slip we saw fishing boats-commercial and for rent-a research vessel and a big coast guard ship. (At the end of the trip when we got off our boat we saw a fishing boat which had just docked with a huge shark on the floor!) Just outside of the boat dock area the coast guard were conducting some type of exercises with a helicopter-who was, at one point, carrying something hooked by a long rope....interesting.
We passed an area where three glaciers were almost coming together! And enjoyed more beautiful scenery. There was one small crisis. There were some really nice people on board from Seward-they own an automotive repair place. Their children were down from Texas ("he met some girl from Texas, followed here there, married her and never came home" Mama explained and they were bound for Fox Island to stay the weekend). Anyway, Colleen noticed smoke-she and the crew were always looking around with binoculars for something to point out to us tourists. As it turned out the smoke was something burning at these people's house. Via cell phone they were able to determine it was a car and I guess get it put out because when our boat driver offered to take them back they declined. It was obvious that Colleen, these Sewardites and the boat driver were all acquainted-which one would expect of locals in a very small town ("a town of about 4,000 which swells to 50,000 on July 4). I'm thinking you'd have to ban together to survive the summer influx of tourists!
At Fox Island we had a so-so meal of salmon, rice, salad and desert and headed back out for a final 4 hours of touring-and looking for whales. They escaped our eagle eyes this day! But, we did see Rocky Mountain sheep which are shaggier then the Dahl and don't have the beautiful curved horns. There was a family-mom, dad and baby.
On the way to Fox Island we saw a sea otter and puffin. We continued to see puffin flying over head and in the water during the cruise. But, the best sighting was while my camera was jammed (I also ran out of batteries before we got to Fox Island, even though I started with fresh ones...fortunately, they were available for a mere $1.50 a battery.) There was a puffin in a crevice in some rocks (how the boat driver spotted him I'll never know)....so he pulled up to the edge of the cliffs so we could see it...when we got closer we could see the head of another one sitting in the crevice peeking out....the one we originally spotted very pointedly turned his back to us but neither on made a move to fly off. I was wondering if we were going to hit the cliff-I bet there wasn't two feet between us and the cliff. I really was wishing my camera was working-not just for the great chance to photograph the puffin but because I was on the upper deck and the picture of the prow of the boat up against the cliff would have been great!
Due to camera malfunction, you also won't see the Stellar Sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks or the cliffs that were alive with birds! You'll have to take it from me that it was awesome. On one rock there was a big, big bull!
But, the most beautiful, most majestic, most special moment came when we entered spiral cove. There are huge finger-like projections of rock coming up out of the water topped with trees and vegetation. They are arranged in a spiral like grouping and our boat driver took us in among them, at times barely scrapping between them. We were all gasping and at times almost silent in awe!!! I could go back just for that.....I used my rapid fire setting to get a series of pictures of the waves raising and falling against the rocks-look for that when you look at the pictures.
It was some day!!!! As for the pictures-you may get tired of looking at them. I realized when I reviewed them this morning that there are lots of pictures of mountains, water, mountains and water, etc. But, when you are there it is so beautiful and I am constantly trying, unsuccessfully to capture the beauty and the majesty! I fall short every time but I keep trying! Oh, how I wish you were all here to see it yourself....this is the most beautiful place on earth.
On the way home last night Jane wondered if anyplace else will every seem beautiful again after being here....I'm not sure. Right now it is simply impossible to believe there is another place on earth this beautiful. I will be leaving on July 3 and it is with mixed feelings....I will miss Alaska!
On another note-Shawna and Tony....I was thinking about you yesterday. I wish I would have been in Abilene for your wedding but I know it was wonderful and I'm so happy for both of you!!
Ok....here is the link for the pictures-I saved it to last so you had to struggle through the whole long story!