The captain continued, “As we travel over the next few hours, there will be things we spot along the way. To make it easier to reference the direction of the sighting, I’ll use clock directions. So 12 o’clock means looking straight ahead, 3 o’clock is to my right, which is also called the starboard side, 6 o’clock is behind us, and 9 o’clock is on my left or what we call the port side.”
The captain was sitting in a glass-enclosed cabin on the second level (technically called second deck), which gave him an elevated view of the waters – the place he sits is called a wheelhouse.
The perimeter of the boat on all floors had a railing – so when you stood outside, you had something to hold on to. The boat set out, taking a path to exit Resurrection Bay.
“And there we have our first sighting of the trip. The bald eagle at 1 o’clock.”
It was visible from inside, and we were able to get good shots without stepping out. It was perched on top of a pipe in the harbour.
“We’ll slow down to get a good view of it.”
Moorthy got a good snap on his pro cam.
It had been just a couple of minutes since the boat had begun moving.
“This is a glacier cruise, but along the way, if we get to see wildlife, we’ll slow down to spot them in their natural habitats.”
“Now, the bald eagle is native to the US. What makes them amazing is that they have great eyesight, a lot more powerful than ours. They have two retinas in each eye. Lately, I’ve been wondering about perspective, and the bald eagle has a 340-degree field of view. Perspectives differ based on your viewpoint.”
The captain went on a little philosophical note on perspectives, which I found a little odd – didn’t really gel with the narrative, and maybe, this was just a little too soon in the trip to talk philosophy. Anyway, within a minute or so, it seemed like the bald eagle was aware that many eyes were looking at it, and it took off elegantly.
A few minutes later, the captain mentioned a sea otter. “You can see it in the water. Goes in and comes up. I’ll slow down a bit, while you all can take a look.”
This was not easy to spot; I stepped out and picked up a pair of binoculars on the way. The door was tight, and you really had to put a lot of force to get it open, and once open, it would snap shut quickly unless you held it. Outside, it was a little breezy, and I tried to focus the binoculars in the direction of the sea otter – it was quite a sight; it was like the sea otter was playing in the ocean! The binoculars gave an amazing view of the animal.
The binocular model was the Nikon Aculon A211. It gives you an 8x or 10x zoom. Many people stepped out; some with pro cameras trying to capture a shot. I gave up on taking snaps since there was no way my phone’s zoom would capture this.
Moorthy did manage to get a decent zoom on his iPhone from inside the cabin.
“You guys should get the binoculars. Check it out.”
Inside the cabin, on a wall, there were posters with details of marine life in the Seward area. Sea otters apparently eat up to 20-30% of their body weight daily!
There was a scenic cliffside view along with a waterfall on it, and then, we came across a harbour seal that was stationary – in fact, it was like a white puff among the rocks.
“Harbour seal on the port side.”
Outside the first deck, there were extra railings to hold on to, in case you didn’t feel comfortable holding the railings on the edge of the boat.
“Harbour seals can drop their core temperature and dive deep into the sea. They may not move elegantly on land, but they make up for it in the sea.” They can go down some 500 meters and stay underwater for 20 minutes. “They can swim through the waters pretty effortlessly.”
Though the waters were fairly calm, as we motored along, you may still feel a rocky motion, and you may not feel stable without holding on to a rail or some support.
One of the seals was lying down on a solitary rock, while a couple of others were on the coastline nearby.
We had a little booklet that described the route we’d take and listed some key wildlife and birds we might see along the way.
“Already seen 3 listed here,” I commented.
The last page of the booklet described the 4 cruise options. “The 4-hour cruise just goes around the bay.” That was the shortest one and was meant to view wildlife alone. The 6-hour one onwards were the ones going to the glaciers – there were 3 of them; in our cruise, we’d get to see one.
“Starboard 2 o’clock. Mountain goats.”
We ran out again to see if we could spot the goats. This was quite a struggle to spot – these are white.
“The main reason I respect them is that while most of our animals migrate, these are one of the rare few that do not migrate or hibernate.” They live on the steep cliffs on the coast.
Moorthy felt he saw them, but I still couldn’t; eventually, I did spot it thanks to all the other people on the deck, some of whom had powerful zoom cameras, and looking in the direction they were focusing on helped me spot them – there were a couple of goats facing each other, extremely still, and appeared like a couple of cotton balls! You’d think it was an inanimate life form unless you knew what you were looking for!
“What you see at a distance as we pull away from Resurrection Bay is the Bear Glacier. This is a massive expanse of ice. The only ways to reach Kenai Fjord are by boat, plane, or kayak. It is hard to hike to get here.”