Tuesday, Day 28, 2007

I woke up, and drove to Seward. Our hotel is another train called Train Wreck. It's 3 trains in a triangle. We talked to a person who was fileting fish, and went to an aquarium. There was a sea Lion getting fed and doing tricks. There were birds that dove deep in the water. The coolest thing was the octopus. It was huge, but could fit in a tiny hole. I won again in Dominoes and fell asleep at 11:00 sharp.

On to Seward, where we are staying in a railroad car again, this time right on the small-boat harbor. The railroad car is nicely done, and we're happy to once again have an indoor bathroom. Off we went to lunch at Ray's, which was excellent, as advertised, but a bit pricey. Then to the Alaska Sealife Center, which had marvelous displays of local fish, birds, and sea mammals, and very nice explanations of the ecology of the region.

We saw orcas! One breached, and one stood on its tail to look us over. We saw a whole bunch of Stellar Sea Lions sunning themselves on an island. For a while we were tracked by 3 or 4 Dall's porpoises that kept racing the boat and swimming over and under the bow wave. I really thought they'd get crushed by the hull, but they knew what they were doing and were playing with us.

We also saw a sea otter. Some on the boat saw a humpback whale, but I missed it. the ranger aboard the boat said that the humpback was probably trying to escape from the hunting orcas. We went up the Kenai Fjords and saw one of the glaciers calving into the fjord.