After our stay in Seward, it was time to head north again, backtracking toward Anchorage. About two thirds of the way back we took a divert to Whittier as we had a wildlife & glacier cruise booked.
The problem with getting to Whittier is there's a single lane tunnel, and by single I mean one way. What this means is that it's West bound for 30 mins then East bound for 30 mins (in simple terms). To make things worse, the tunnel also has a railway track. It's a bit of a logistics nightmare considering the volume of road/rail freight and tourist traffic through this 4 km tunnel. They seem to have it pretty well under control though. For train nuts, there's a rail motor on one end of the train (below) and a conventional deisel loco on the other. The trains are fairly regular and have a big hand in moving the hoards of cruise ship passengers to Anchorage where they are redistributed to either the airport or elsewhere in Alaska.
After negotiating the tunnel we popped out at Whittier. It's a tinny little town with a big marina & a small container port. The rain was torrential & had been since about half way from Seward. We were already sick of the incessant drizzle & showers, only for it to get heavier & more consistent. Alaska was really starting to get us down.
Despite the weather, we boarded the cruise boat with 150 other tourists and tried to think positive. The cruise took us to another kittywake rookery (above) and then near a salmon farm. The salmon farm is a non-profit organization and its main purpose is to boost the wild salmon populations. The also do scientific research. The salmon had started to run that day and we saw some of them jumping. The predators knew too. The bald eagles were hanging around waiting for easy pickings.
There were also a few otters in the inlet. This guy (above) was just kicking back, cracking shellfish on his belly. It's hard to believe Sea Otters were only recently an endangered species considering how many we saw. And they're so damn cute!
The boat cruise took us close to a few glaciers, but none bigger than Cox Glacier (above). If you look closely you can see one of the larger cruise boats in front Cox Glacier (it's the small dark shape next to the dark island in the centre of shot). It really puts the glacier's shear size into perspective. Unfortunately, the weather made it impossible to take nice photos.
Our cruise took us up to Surprise Glacier. It was much smaller than Cox Glacier, but by no means less spectacular. The weather wasn't exactly helpful, as you can see by the gear Kerri's wearing, but it backed off enough for us to get a good look. Surprise Glacier is usually pretty active in that chunks of it carve off and fall into the water. Unfortunately it wasn't so co-operative for us. A tiny little chunk fell off, but it wasn't especially spectacular.
Glaciers always have a blue tint to them and this one is a classic example (see below). Apparently the ice is so dense that most light is absorbed in the glacier and it's only the high energy blue part of the spectrum is able to escape again. Hence the blue glaciers. End of science lesson....
The water near the glacier was littered with little (and some bigger) ice bergs.
After a fairly uninspiring cruise for the most part (except for the glacier) the boat was heading back to Whittier when we saw this sight. There were four Bald Eagles fighting over a carcass on a little ice burg. The captain pulled up and let us watch for a bit. It was a rare treat and kind of made up for the poor weather and lack of wildlife (particularly absence of whales).
We didn't hang around in Whittier after the cruise. The rain had started to really hammer down and there's not much to do. So we headed back through the tunnel (after having to wait for the next train to go through), and made our way back to Anchorage for a nice warm shower.
