I headed back to the upper deck. It wasn’t long before the captain said that there may be another whale in the vicinity – a fin whale.
“The fin whale is the 2nd largest whale species. First place is the blue whale. They can grow up to 80 feet.”
They can weigh up to 70 tons – a newborn weighs around 1.6 tons!
“They can stay underwater for a long time – even for an hour without surfacing. Patience is the name of the game – just like the humpback whale, we are looking for that puff of smoke. And then, after that, you’d see its long back.”
We waited for a few minutes – it was hard to stand still since the breeze was strong, and the boat was rocking a little on the waves. I think the captain would probably have said this was still calm seas! Some were brave enough to just stand leaning against the railings while holding their cam with both hands. I still wanted to have one arm on a railing! Reminded me of bus conductors in India – even though the bus swerved, accelerated and decelerated abruptly, they’d be able to stand inside without holding anything for support.
We saw a couple of spouts, and then their long back appeared above the water – no tail flip here. But as we were watching them, another one appeared on the other side of the boat. That was a sei whale.
“Sei whales were earlier mistaken for fin whales. It is smaller than a fin whale and the 3rd-largest member of the whale species. And there’s one more.”
There was another spout.
“There is bait back under us from 350 feet to 50 feet; it’s just bait. I’m sure there are 20 to 30 fin and sei whales here. This is a feeding frenzy out here. There – there’s another spout – and two more – different from the ones we just looked at.
It was 12:50 pm; the captain said we were running late, but since there were so many whales, he said we’ll try to see a few more before leaving. And he hoped that we wouldn’t mind being 15 to 20 minutes late. Don’t think anyone was going to be upset about a longer cruise.
Raghav and Rakesh were on the upper deck, while Moorthy stayed down in the cabin – and he got a nice video of 3 of the whales that were swimming beside our boat – not too close, but their tops were clearly visible.
All of a sudden, we saw a whale swim extremely close to the front of the boat – it felt almost like it was just below us and swam perpendicular to the boat.
There were so many spouts we spotted, and many instances where we could see the top.
“There are not many blue whales that have been spotted in Alaska.”
That was the only one we hadn’t spotted yet!
“Blue whales and fin whales migrate to the same place in winter – near Costa Rica. And blue and fin whales have started to mate together.”
We could see other smaller boats swarming towards our vicinity.
“They’ve all come for whale watching. When there are sightings, the news spreads quickly.”
By 1:15 pm, we had moved away from the whale territory, and things quietened; people returned to their seats. Near the whale territory, it was cloudy, but out here, it was again a bit sunny and bright. Raghav didn’t stay outside for long stretches since he had a bit of motion sickness. Fortunately, I didn’t feel any uneasiness in this long boat ride, and so stayed on the upper deck. There were just a couple of others out here.
The Bear glacier that you see at a distance is landlocked and a lot larger than the tidewater glacier Holgate that we saw earlier. This one is 13 miles long, and it’s at the entrance to the Kenai Fjord National Park.”
Some history
Around 1:30pm, a day staff member came around distributing a small box with a brownie. It tasted really good – maybe more so because of us being in the middle of the ocean. The staff, in the meantime, were having some activities with the kids near the pantry – there was a book they had given the kids earlier that they were going over. And they were also distributing some goodies. Raghav and Rakesh had dozed off in their seats. I returned to the upper deck and stayed there till the end of the cruise.
“There used to be a river in Seward downtown, and even 15 centimetres of rain would cause flooding. So, natives preferred Aialik to Seward. It was a hard place to live in. The Governor of Russia, back in the 1790s, came here on resurrection Sunday. After seeing the place, he made significant developmental progress. He felt that the Seward area was perfect for getting a ship for the purposes of trading. After he passed, development in this area came to a standstill.”
The interesting thing is that, back in those days, it seems the US and Russia were on somewhat friendly terms.
“In 1867, the US bought Alaska from Russia. And then in Alexander Baranov’s logbook, he had mentioned that in December, he found no ice here. This is the northernmost ice-free port. And this is the resurrection bay area,” the captain said as our boat returned to the bay from where our journey had begun 6 hours ago. Alexander was a Russian merchant.
“The purchase of Alaska is called Seward’s folly! The purchase happened because the Secretary of State, William Seward, back then, bought it for 7 million from Russia – 2 cents for an acre.”
Back then, it seems most people were not in favour of the purchase because they thought it was a barren land – they even termed it President Andrew Johnson’s ‘polar bear garden’!
As per history, Russia had originally occupied Alaska, and they profited from the fur trade – but no one really stayed there long enough, and no permanent colony was set up. Eventually, the fur trade declined, and it was hard for Russia to maintain the territory at a time when it was waging the Crimean War and had lost to Great Britain. And so they were open to selling it. And Seward believed that it was land that the US should own – he was an ‘expansionist’ looking to expand US territories. With both countries on good terms, the deal went through. It surely didn’t turn out to be a folly in the long run!
“We’ve covered a total of 106 miles today.”
By 2:20pm, we were back in the dock from where we had started.
While leaving, I tried to get a peek at the captain’s wheelhouse; I noticed a couple of books on his desk – one on marine mammals of the world and another on birds. I guess the captain kept his knowledge up to date so he could pepper in fun facts during the cruises. I was almost the last person to exit. People contributed to a tip jar as they exited – that way the tips would be shared among the crew for the day.
Back in the Harbor hotel, we took turns using the restroom. While I was waiting near the exit, a couple came up and asked, “Have you been on this cruise before?”
“No.”
“Oh. Was nice seeing that you were the rare ones spending all the time outdoor in your sweater and hoodie.”
“Ah. First time – enjoyed it. How about you?”
“Our second time. Have a good day.”
Tip for those doing the cruises
- Take the longer one; I think the 6-hour is great – there are even longer ones if you do enjoy being out in the ocean, but otherwise the 6-hour is good for starters.
- Wear layers – no harm in wearing or carrying extra layers because sometimes it does get quite cold.
- Make use of the binoculars – or carry your own.