Kenai Fjords

After Deep Creek I went to Peterson Lake, a nice spot I found two years ago.  I liked it so much then I ended up staying almost two weeks.  Again it was pretty nice with the exception of the mosquitoes.  All the locals in Alaska have been complaining about how bad they are this year, the worse in decades.  It interesting how sometimes during the day they were hardly around and at other times you couldn't stand to be outside.  The result was that I only stayed 4 nights and moved on.  During the day I could handle it, but at night, hearing those little buggers, that somehow got into the motorhome, buzzing around my head was truly annoying.

Peterson Lake is close to the Russian River which is famous for it's salmon fishing.  I pretty much missed the first big run, which wasn't much of a lose for me as I just enjoy being on the river.

Where the Russian River flows into the Kenai river is where the “Combat” fishing takes place.  There a passenger ferry that takes fishermen to the other side of the Kenai so they can fish from the bank on that side.  Apparently, most of the fish travel up that side for some reason.  This picture doesn't show just how close these fisherman are to each other.  I was told that during the peak of the salmon runs the fisherman are are just a few feet apart.  A nurse I met from the local hospital said you wouldn't believe the human body parts they have removed fish hooks from.  One of the funniest was a hook that resembled a large nose ring.  

One of my “Bucket List” items was to see a glacier caving into a sound or inlet somewhere.  As much as Gail and I sailed around the Pacific Northwest, we never made it far enough north to see one from the water.  To do so requires a boat, which I no longer own one capable of such an adventure.  In Seward, my next stop, there are several companies that offer tours to see the wildlife and glaciers of the Kenai Fjords National Park.  I wasn't interested in seeing wildlife since I've seen lots from our own boat, but this was a chance to see a glacier from the water, so out came the American Express Card. 

However, never have I seen a Humpback Whale, or any whale for that mater, leap completely out of the water.  Seeing that made the trip worthwhile.  We could have turned around then and I would have been happy.  Our captain, Dan, said that he has rarely seen it, maybe once or twice a year at most.  On a side note, I had several nice conversations with Dan.  He crewed on the Adventurous on Puget Sound several years, lives on a Newport 30 when in Seward (we had a Newport 30 for 20 some years), does Orca Whale research and leads kayak tours in Antarctica.

Now I can cross another item off the Bucket List.  This was spectacular.  We were a quarter mile away.   The glacier periodically would snap and pop.  Every few minutes, big chunk of ice would fall into the water.  It was great!

The ice formations were really fascinating. I understand that this glacier, the Northwestern Glacier, is fairly fast moving which might explain why it is so broken up before it calves into the water.

Believe it or not, Captain Dan drove the boat way into this inlet. 

Another waterfall nearby. 

And of course we saw lots of birds on some of the islands

A sea lion rookery

And lastly, on the way home, we ran into another group of Humpback Whales.   A couple of times we did come across pods of Orca “Killer” Whales but they were usually quite a ways off so I didn't get any good pictures.