Alaska Bucket List Adventure

 Most people know what a difficult time I had adjusting to Alaska when I arrived last summer.  It didn't help that I was coming off a quarter of virtual teaching/directing and a summer of working five days a week in 90 degree heat under Covid restrictions while planning my move.  The 5 day marathon drive from Colorado with my cat and an overstuffed car also awesome. I had expected National Geographic--I needed National Geographic after half a year of 2020--and I got Seattle. :P

In January, I decided to book a trip to do all the things I expected from Alaska.  I remembered when we had been in Seward in 2019 it was supposed to have views of everything I wanted.  When we were there, it was foggy and raining, so I thought it was worth revisiting. 

The original National Geographic Alaska centerfold I'd seen many years ago was a kayaker paddling at the bottom of a tall, calving glacier. I googled "kayaking" and "glaciers" and found Sunny Cove Kayaking.  They had a full day tour featuring a half day of kayaking in to the Holgate Glacier (a tall, actively calving glacier) and a half day wildlife cruise promising every kind of Alaskan animal possible.  Neat.

I did some research and found out June might be the best time to go because there are less tourists.  It's also when the humpbacks and puffins return and when halibut season opens. 

Orca Beach Cabin

Originally ,we planned to stay at Seward Military Resort, but they were having problems with their reservation system.  I had seen a picture of this tiny little beach cabin right on the bay on Instagram, so I googled where it was and reserved us the Orca Beach cabin at Miller's Landing.  As luck would have it, Miller's Landing also had halibut fishing tours.  Blake's family are huge fisher people (what is a gender neutral term for fisherman?) and I knew he would enjoy that tour despite his lack of visible joy :P. All of a sudden we had a packed weekend--a full day cruise and kayak starting at 7 on Saturday, and a full day halibut tour starting at 7:30 on Sunday.  

Views from inside.

When we checked in to Miller's Landing, the cabin looked exactly like I'd hoped, except that it was really close to the other sites and cabins.  It also had two large windows and a patio door with no curtains.  Aside from the neverending daylight, we also had neighbors on both sides and people walking all over in front of the patio door.  We rigged some makeshift curtains for the side windows with towels and bungee cords and used one of the extra blankets and a chair to block most of the patio door. We aren't sure if Friday was a lot of people's first night in Alaska or what, but it was complete chaos.  Loud music, screaming babies and children running all over our patio at 11 p.m. when we had to get up at 6 for our tour.  I was disappointed and crabby that my beautiful Instagram vision was a disaster (as they
usually are).

The ladies next to us loudly got up at 5, so I did too, making an excessive amount of noise myself.  I was super crabby going into town for the cruise/kayak and worried about being on a boat.  I don't do great on choppy water, but it didn't seem windy so I took my Dramamine and hoped for calm. 

We had just gotten out into the middle of the bay when there were shouts of "whales!" For the next ten minutes, we followed 2-4 humpbacks chomping fish out of the water, slapping their tails, and rolling in the water.  It was a fabulous way to start the day, though everything happened much too fast to take photos.  I started to feel a little bit better. 

We stopped along the way to view Bear glacier, some sea lions, and harbor seals.  Little puffins floated independently in the bigger waves. Eventually, we arrived at the beach at the mouth of the bay and suited up in kayaks.  It's early season, and it was pretty evident our guides were still feeling each other and the routine out. I got yelled at when I went to go pee behind a bush because they thought I was

Crazy headwind paddling towards the glacier.

going to get eaten by a bear.  I wrote our guides a good review, except that to be respectful that not all their clients are idiots from some land locked state who want to pet dangerous wildlife.  I do wonder if they had someone get attacked by a bear, as they were obsessed about not letting us get more than ten feet from them.  It required a lot of deep breathing.

We had some easy kayaking to start, observing some super adorable harbor seals who looked at us with the biggest eyes and cutest little spots and watching the numerous spring waterfalls down the sides of the cliffs. When we turned to paddle in to the glacier we got an incredible headwind that had both Blake and I working.  It was like white water rafting as the waves we were paddling into were so big, I was completely soaked after just one.  I didn't have my rain jacket on as it had been hot before then.  They stopped us to give us directions to land at a different beach, and we all got blown back into an iceberg and stuck.  We did get to see the glacier calve (lose big chunks into the water) twice and heard a lot of loud grumbling and rumbling as it settled. 

We had a wonderful healthy lunch they provided us (they even made mine soy free and veggie), which was one of my favorite parts of the tour.  They also had lots of snacks and drinks on the boat, so it was a lot less for us to worry about. 

We got back on the boat after lunch.  We'd seen most of the wildlife already, but then our captain said

Beautiful lunch spot with three different faces of the glacier. 

he had a tip about some orcas.  I've seen orcas in captivity, but  never in the wild.  We spent about 20 minutes chasing down leads, and eventually we found them in a tiny little cove with emerald green water.  They were a family of about 4, and they got very close to the boat.  The first mate had a device she put in the water so we could hear the clicks and squeaks they use to talk to each other.  It was amazing.  When they moved off out of the cove, we turned around and there was a plethora of boats behind us.  Two giant touring ships, and about ten different fishing boats of all sizes.  They had all come to watch the orcas too, which meant it must be a very special treat to see them.

When we were almost back to the bay, we ran into a pod of Dall's porpoises.  Porpoises are basically fat dolphins and Dall's porpoises look like miniature orcas.  They were super fast, zipping all around from side to side and in and out of the water.  

We got back to Seward very satisfied with our day. We grabbed food and beer from the grocery store, as well as tin foil and tape.  We fixed the windows properly with foil and built a campfire to eat dinner.  The cabin has one of the most amazing campfire spots I've ever seen, and the tide came right up to the rocks in the night.  We fell asleep to the whooshing of the waves, which is way better than my ocean sound machine.  Saturday night was a much calmer night than Friday, and we were grateful for the sleep. 

Broad daylight campfires at 10 p.m.

Sunday was fishing day.  We were the only two that weren't part of a large group, so we got the smaller fishing boat that only seats six.  It was very crowded in the cab, and as we got out of the bay, we went very fast and it was incredibly bumpy.  I started to worry I wasn't going to be able to make it to where we were going, as my whole body from my head to toes started to tingle.  We slowed down to go by Chiswell Islands, which was on my bucket list as a nesting ground for puffins.  We were literally surrounded by flocks of puffins floating everywhere and flying through the air.  I smiled big and was grateful for the break from the bumpy ride.  We also passed sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks, and a few porpoises jumped on their way to porpoise-y things. 

I'm traditionally not a great fisherwoman.  The last time I went fly fishing I hooked my own head with the hook.  To be fair, it was really windy, but still. I had missed the captain's explanation of what we were doing because I was trying not to be ill by focusing on mountains, and I missed part of his again while outside because we were facing away from land and all I could see were giant waves rolling towards us.  I started to think maybe this was a very bad life choice. 

We began by fishing for halibut around a depth of 300 feet.  There's a whole lot of line involved in getting to 300 feet, and even just reeling it in without a fish on it is tiring.  I caught the first fish of the day, an arrow something or other that isn't edible. After that, it went downhill for me. :P

Blake caught our only halibut, an orange rock fish and a pea cod.  He also caught his limit of rock fish.  Fishing for rock fish is a lot faster, and you have to take the rod out of the holder.  The rods themselves are really heavy, and I was tired from kayaking the day before. I thought I might just lose the whole business into the ocean. We got about 8 fish in about 15 minutes, it was super crazy.  I did catch my

Catching rock fish

limit of rock fish, but only because they are super easy to catch.  Everyone else ate when we were moving from place to place, but that doesn't work for me, so I declared my own lunch break after the rock fish craziness and felt a lot better after some chips and an iced coffee.

We moved on to another side of the gulf to continue to try for halibut.  A thick fog was rolling in and we couldn't see anything around us. We did get bites as soon as our lines hit bottom, so though we didn't catch anything, we had a lot to focus on.  We missed about 20 fish, and spent a lot of time reeling up our lines to change the bait.  Our captain was really frustrated none of us were getting any halibut, and he tried really hard to find us good places.  

However, my highlight of the trip had nothing to do with fishing.  The bites had slowed for a bit, the fog misted all around us, and a pod of Dall's porpoises swam in super fast circles around the boat for about 5 minutes.  They were really adorable, fast and so close we could see their whole bodies under water. 

Having been on the boat all day, my body had acclimated so the ride back was much smoother.  We pulled back into the bay and our captain and first mate filleted our catch for us.  We ate some of the rock fish yesterday, and they did a great job filleting in such a way there were exactly zero bones in the fish. Blake liked the tour so much, he said he would "do it again".  High praise.

We stocked the cooler with ice, caffeinated up and got in the car to drive back home.  We crossed everything remaining on our Alaska bucket list off with this trip and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an amazing Alaskan experience.  

Link for Miller's Landing (camping, cabins, RV, tours, water taxis):https://www.millerslandingak.com/

    $120 a night for the Orca beach cabin which is a bit steep considering you have to pay for showers 

       and make your own curtains

     Including tax, it was $654 for two people for a full day combo fishing tour including halibut. 

      Bring own lunch/snacks and rain gear/boots.  You take home what you catch, they filet for you.

Link for Sunny Cove Kayaking (kayak and wildlife tours): https://www.sunnycove.com/

      $900 for two people for the Grand Day full day tour (half day kayaking, half day wildlife tour)

        Small boat seats only twelve guests so it can maneuver easily to find wildlife.  Lunch, snacks and

        and any gear needed included in the price

Link for Seward Brewery: https://www.sewardbrewery.com/  Go early, no reservations, does have         crowlers.