After hiking up Flattop Mountain (in rain), visiting several quilt shops for Row by Row patterns, and having a snack with our beer at the Midnight Sun brew pub, the next morning we left Anchorage on the Seward Highway for the Kenai Peninsula. Our first stop was Seward where we set up at the dry (no hookups) municipal camping facility on Resurrection Bay. Seward, at the end of the highway, is the only town on the east coast of the peninsula. The Good Friday Earthquake in 1964 caused fires and tidal waves that destroyed 90% of the town. The town has completely rebuilt with a Small Boat Harbor and waterfront designed to be earthquake proof. Our tour into Kenai Fjords National Park left from this harbor. Of course there was the Sew’n Bee Cozy quilt shop and Seward Brewing Company stop.

  

Our tour boat from Seward, the Orca Voyager, cruised through Resurrection Bay into the Gulf of Alaska and around the Aialik Peninsula to the Aialik Tidewater Glacier with many slow downs to view sea mammals and birds. The Aialik Glacier in the Kenai Mountains is one of 40 glaciers which flow from the 300 square mile Harding Ice Field. This ice field receives as much as 100 feet of snow each year.
                          

Sea Otter and Humpback Whale

We also saw Orca Whales, Stellar Sea Lions, and Harbor Seals.

Puffin, Eagles


Murre

The Murre is closely related to the penguin. It is the deepest diving sea bird that can still fly. They lay their eggs on bare rock in horizontal cracks and crevices so that they do not roll off the rocks.

We also saw Cormorants, flocks of Kittiwakes and lots of Gulls.


Fishing along the Kenai
A major activity throughout the Kenai region is commercial fisheries and recreational fishing concentrated along the lengthy Kenai River all the way to the Cook Inlet. Alaska residents are permitted to dip net fish for the salmon that are now running upriver to spawn.  
 


Jim trys to share Santa Claus’ ice cream.


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