Seward

From Homer, I went to Seward for a few days.  On my last trip here six years ago, I had spent a very long time in the Seward Aquarium, and I was looking forward to a return visit.  It did not disappoint. 

The section I looked forward to most was the sea birds.  They have an enclosure, sort of like a butterfly exhibit at zoos you might be familiar with, but this one is full of sea birds.  According to the caretaker, there are 64 birds in the enclosure of at least six different varieties.  They have both horned and tufted Puffins, Kittiwakes, Murres, Pigeon Gulemots, Black Oystercatchers and ducks whose variety I can't remember. They are all flying free in this enclosure, and it is up to the viewer to stay away from the birds.  If they land near you, you must move.  That said, some of the birds are quite tame, and one of the horned puffins allowed himself to be handled by the caretaker (his name is Nemo!). I could have spent hours in there, just watching the birds. 

 

Horned Puffin (Nemo!)

Kittiwakes with a chick

Black Oystercatcher

Common Murres

Beautiful duck

They also have a very nice touch tank, although that part of the aquarium was fairly crowded that day.  But I got up close and personal with sea stars and anemones, and watched the critters in a barnacle tank.  That was most fascinating, because of the way they wave their antennae (is that what they are called?) reminding me of the flag twirlers in high school football half time programs. (George, I took this video especially for you!) 

 

Video for George

Anemone -- just beautiful! 

The next day, I did a glacier cruise that was OK, but it rained almost all day, and by the end I was soaking wet and very cold.  All I could think about was stopping at Safeway and getting some soup for supper (which I did) and then curling up under the covers to get warm (which I also did).  

 

Sea Lions

Seals

The Glacier

Nesting Puffins deep in those crevices. 

This is what it looked like out on the water. 

Seward is also famous for its murals; they paint a new one each year and they are displayed on the side of many of the buildings in town.  This tryptic tells the story of Raven and the Creation and was particularly moving to me. 

Seldovia

Boy am I ever far behind on blog posts.  Now that I have some reasonable Wi-Fi, maybe I can get caught up! 

Seldovia is a very small town across Katchemak Bay from Homer that can only be reached by boat or plane. That meant a day trip was in the cards, and Rainbow Tours had just the trip. It included some wildlife viewing on the way to Seldovia, then several hours in the town, and a faster ride back to Homer.

 

View on the way

The ride there included a fascinating, up close view of Gull Island, a bird sanctuary, and we saw thousands of birds, including Puffins, Murres, and Kittiwakes. The Murres and the Kittiwakes were nesting on the rocks, the Murres at the very top, and the Kittiwakes a bit further down. The Puffins that we saw were all in the water, because the places that they were nesting were deep in crevices in the rocks and it was too hard to see them. 

 

Murres at the top

Kittiwakes

We also saw quite a few sea otters, which are just the cutest thing you have ever seen. They seemed to want to pose for us! As the guide said, anyone who didn't get a good sea otter photo just wasn't trying…. 

 

He posed for quite a while!

There's a whole raft of them here! 

The other thing that was plentiful on Gull Island was flies.  The combination of low tide and the time of day when we were viewing the island was ideal for flies finding our boat and following us most of the way to Seldovia.  This wasn't just a few flies, no, this was a hoard of them.  If you were outside on the deck and stood up, a black cloud rose from your jeans.  Two of the crew members went outside with fly swatters and a hose and tried to get rid of them, but it was pretty hopeless, and most of us stayed inside for the rest of the voyage to Seldovia. 

It's a picturesque fishing town, with one main street with no more than two dozen buildings in all.  It was lunchtime, and luckily one of the buildings was a restaurant.  I had salmon and chips and it was delicious! 

Yum, lunch! 

 In a small park there were some chain saw carvings; these two in particular caught my eye. 

The town was mainly shops to entice tourists, but as I was looking around, I saw two men down on the dock cleaning their fish. I asked them if I could take photos, and they were glad to have me do it.  It was fascinating to see how quickly they could clean a fish, and they each had a big ziplok bag full of both salmon and halibut fillets by they time they were finished; it made me envious of their freezers contents for this coming winter…. The crows had a feast! 

Lots of salmon.

Filleting a Halibut. 

The crows eat too. 

Although these two men had been successful, when I looked off the bridge in the town, I only saw a few salmon on their way to spawn. But the view from the bridge was lovely.