We had an early breakfast before leaving the hotel for the very short walk to the boat dock and our 9 hour trip along the Kenai Fjord,via Fox island to drop off a passenger, Bear Glacier, where you could see the icebergs that had calves off sitting behind the terminal moraine which was blocking their exit into fjord, the Chislet islands, Orgive and Northeastern glaciers and on to the Northwestern Glacier our final destination.
It was a dull drizzly day - but the sun came out when we were at the glacier, it rained at times but thankfully the winds were lightish and the sea was relatively calm.
The conditions allowed some good wildlife viewing - sea otters as we left and returned to harbour, a pod of orcas, including a 2016 model, several humpback whales, with one breaching only once so pictures weren't possible,
Stellar sea lions hauled out on rocks and lots of harbour seals snoozing on the ice close to the glacier. The approach to the glacier had several large chunks of ice but for the most part it was like pushing through a vanilla 'slush puppy'!
The bird life was also excellent - tufted and horned puffins -with fish in their beaks, flying, floating and trying to fly - but too fat and gorged to take off - and sitting on the rocks or by their burrows.
We also saw kittiwakes, parakeet auklets, rhino billed auklets, common murres,red faced cormorants and the statutory bald eagles.
On our return the Seward fortifications for WW 2 were pointed out - abandoned before the end of the war but strategically important as Seward is year round ice free due to a warm current that flows by.
Stewards other claims to fame are: it started life as a railroad town and eventually the railroad reached Fairbanks ( we stopped for a scenic tourist train on the way down), the annual Iditarod - husky sled race to Nome starts here, the annual race up Marathon mountain - 3 miles and very steep- initially started as a bar room $100 bet to to go up and back to the bar stool in 60 mins - the bet was lost as it took him 62 minutes - the current record is 41minutes for men and 47minutes for women!
The nine hours watching was interspersed with eating - warm cinnamon rolls in the morning - wraps for lunch and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon - and snoozing - it was quite warm in the cabin and together with the food and motion most people took snoozes knowing the captain would let us know of any good sightings.
A good day - enabling us to see things you cannot see on shore - a different perspective.
(Today's photo is a tufted puffin preparing for breakfast.)