Oh, and we saw whales too.

I’ve done this trip before, a bunch of times. But I’ve never gotten to see Holgate Glacier so “up close and personal”. Aialik Glacier is still my favorite, as it is so wide at the terminus (where it meets the ocean), but Holgate was very dramatic. A very steep face along with several small calving events (one of which I was able to get on video – hope to post the vid soon!). There is nothing quite like sitting 1/4 mile off the terminus of an active tidewater glacier. It is alive. You can hear it breathing, groaning, and shifting fitfully. It may be silent for a while, but then without warning you’ll hear a sharp crack, followed quickly by a low and rumbling booooom. Ice chunks thousands of years old flake off, plummeting towards the water. Ice chunks the size of houses. Houses the size of a mansion! Yeah, it don’t get much better than that.

Did I mention we saw whales?

We had several Dall’s porpoise playing off the bow of our ship for several minutes – it was too contrasty to shoot the camera, so I got some fun video (that’ll be coming soon too!). We also witnessed some playful Orca that circled our boat for a long time in the morning. Orca, more commonly known as killer whales, aren’t actually whales at all – they belong to the dolphin family. Sometimes called “Blackfish” or the “Sea Wolf”, orca are the largest members of the dolphin family. This particular family (or pod) was very active, expelling air from their blowholes, arcing their backs, and surfacing in groups of 5-6 at one time. There was even tail slapping behavior and “spy hopping”. Spy hopping is when the orca pop their heads and upper body vertically out of the water to get a look at their surroundings. It is very difficult to photography well, because you never know where they’ll surface, or when. I got a few shots of the activity, but nothing noteworthy. What was noteworthy however, was witnessing it.

“Dave, I don’t mean to press. But you did mention whales…”

Oh yeah, my bad. I was one of the lucky few on our boat to see it happen, but a large humpback breached off the port side of our boat. That’d be the left side of the boat for all you “land-lubbers”. It was further out to sea and a good distance away – to far to get a decent shot. But still amazing to see a 40 ton creature rocket fully out of the water, arch its back and then slam back into the water. The splash down, even though about 1/2 mile away (or more) was still very audible. Yeah, I lead a charmed life.

Here are the pics I got. Remember comment and critique away!

Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris) - Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska

Orca/Killer Whale Pod (Orcinus orca) - Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Surfacing orca, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Orca in black & white, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus), Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Female humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) surfacing, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Humbpack whale - baleen view, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Symbiosis - humpback and gulls, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Surfacing spout, humpback whale, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Symbiosis 2, humpback and gulls, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Humpback tail fluke & gulls, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Holgate Glacier Panoramic, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

I’ll also be posting the second installment in the “Buying your first digital SLR “kit”‘ shortly, as promised. Stay tuned, and keep shooting!