After our four hour train ride through breathtakingly beautiful scenery, we arrived in Seward.
Seward is a quaint little town, which reminded us of many of the coastal towns in Maine.
We checked into the Gateway Hotel, the newest hotel in Seward. It was clean, well appointed and the staff were very friendly. The room was ready at 11:30, even though check in wasn’t until 4.
It’s a modest hotel but the beds were comfortable and it was clean.
We had reservations to go to the Alaska Sealife Center at 2pm. Seward has a free shuttle that picked us up in front of our hotel and dropped us at the center. We learned a lot about Alaska’s sea life, touched star fish, saw sea lions being fed and overall a nice afternoon.
We met two women on the free shuttle who gave us pointers on where to eat. Several restaurants were very expensive and not very good. They did like the the Alaskan Seafood Grill. Nothing fancy, almost a fast food restaurant but said the food was great. We decided to go there. Bruce and I shared the fish and chips. The fish was halibut. Delicious, fresh and not too heavily breaded. Bruce also had the seafood soup. It was wonderful.
We walked back from the restaurant after dinner. It was a short walk and it wasn’t raining. This bird was waiting for us.
Early to bed because we are still a bit jet lagged and Bruce needs to take it easy because of a recent heart attack. He’s such a trooper doing this trip so I will make sure he doesn’t over exert himself.
Free breakfast comes with our hotel stay. They had eggs, sausage, pancakes, pastries, yogurt, granola. It was a good array of foods. We won’t go hungry.
From our table we looked out at the snow peaked mountains.
A van picked us up at our hotel and delivered us to our ship for the day, the Spirit of Matushka.
The skies were cloudy, there was a slight drizzle but it had the feel of a magical day.
Moments after we left the pier we came upon a mature bald eagle. He was so close I felt I could almost touch him.
Our tour operator, Major Marine Tours, was living up to our expectations. The weather wasn’t great for sitting outside all day but we did have an assigned table right by a window. We had a lovely young couple, Parth and Lipi, as our table mates.
As we left the harbor, we also saw many gulls along the barrier rocks.
Shortly after that, we saw a humpback whale. I was able to get photos of the tail. I wouldn’t know this was a humpback but the Captain could even identify which whale this was by it’s tail. It’s like our fingerprint!
That was exciting. And the beauty surrounding us was spectacular.
So many waterfalls. I think I saw more waterfalls here then I did in New Zealand.
We saw a black momma bear and her two cubs on a beach. They were pretty playful. We spent a few minutes watching them.
The rains and winds were picking up and it was hard to stay up straight outside. We would go outside when the boat stopped. I fell at one point and cut up my knee.
Dreamy, I thought, with the low flowing fog and slight mist. Sunny days are one thing but this was special. The beauty enhanced by the clouds.
The glacier was a beautiful blue. The Captain said it’s because of the density of the ice.
We also saw an iceberg floating.
On our way back, we stopped and saw some Stella Sea Lions. They are considered endangered in this area.
And just some random beauty!
We also saw some sea otters playing in the water.
It was a wonderful day spent on the water. We went to Alaska Seafood Grill and each had a bowl of their seafood chowder. Tomorrow we are off to Talkeetna.
A view from our room!
#majormarinetours#spiritofmatushka#seward#alaska#glacier
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