Whale/Glacier Cruise Day! Woohoo! Today is the day for our rescheduled whale cruise. The seas were much better at only 4-6’ seas (pretty normal day) and we were all excited for what the day had to bring. We were able to see so many animals it was actually kind of surprising. We saw humpback whales, porpoises, sea lions, puffin birds, a coyote, sea otters, bald eagles, and some amazing glaciers that calved while we were there. Solomon took a really good nap on the boat but in all fairness it was kind of nap time shortly after we left the harbor. They serve a salmon and prime rib meal on board and it was actually really good. I’m not super into those foods but I ate some and Christopher was able to enjoy the rest :)
Holgate Glacier is the big attraction that you cruise out to and then cruise back to the harbor while stopping to look at animals and glaciers along the way. The glacier was amazing and the sound of it calving was so loud. It was rather chilly so we got a few pictures together and then I went back inside to stay with the sleeping Solomon. On the way there and back you have about 40min in open waters were you experience the higher seas. It’s kind of funny because once you hit that patch of water the crew starts coming around and passing out barf bags and ginger candies. They can pretty much pinpoint the ones who will most likely have trouble keeping their insides in :/ One of the littles that was with our group was white as a ghost and was the only one to actually fill a bag ;)
Now this was a beautiful 6hrs with amazing scenery and really cool animals but…. The most fascinating and memorable part was on the way back to Seward. Everyone has taken amazing photos with this awesome glacier and ate an awesome lunch, some teens on the boat had 3rds :/ just to let all of that beauty go right out the window… literally :) On the way back there was a section of open seas that the waves were so high that everything was sliding off the tables if you weren’t holding it and you’d look out the side to see the huge wave before you went back up in the air. It was quite exciting actually and then all of the sudden all hell broke lose. There were 6 people letting their amazing meal leave their stomachs in my line of sight alone and sadly most of it was not in a bag…. The crew was amazing and they have seasickness stations (cleaning supplies) at the front of each deck. There were 3 crewmembers cleaning on our deck alone while others were cleaning on the main deck below. The only word I could think of was pure carnage. Christopher went outside where the view was no better but at least the air was fresh. We weren’t able to ask if it was an unusual amount of feeding the fishes but from the reactions of the crew it seemed to be a lot. The outside deck became full with the sickly while the inside cabins were still being cleaned up. Buckets of, well you know what it’s of, were being poured out overboard. Once the inside areas were cleaned the crew went to the outside decks and poured buckets of water to clean up after lunch released. It was shoulder to shoulder out on the decks and while I didn’t count how many people I’m really hoping it was an unusual number of people. It was seriously disturbing.
The funniest part was all of this was happening the tail end of Solomon’s nap and he woke up, sat up and asked for fruit snacks while everyone was losing theirs all around him. He kind of looked around like “what’s wrong with all of these people” while asking for more fruit snacks. Haha! None of our group fed the fish on the way back, which is good. It was kind of sad because after the display the captain stopped a few times to see a few more animals and you kind of had the feeling of, “unless that whale is coming on board to high-five me please don’t stop”. I never really felt sick but it did get old trying to stay awake when the boat was literally rocking you to sleep.
I did love it when we saw the whale from the table we were sitting at and Solomon said, “moresom” (how he says more) as if mom could just make the whale surface again! He knew it was a whale though and really enjoyed seeing it. We got back to the harbor, stopped for some food at the bakery we spent a lot of time at and then headed back to the campsite for a great evening. It was a whale of a day at sea!