A Very Playful Humpback

Spoiler alert.   This humpback breached maybe 24/25 times right next to our tour glacier/whale watching boat.   I have multiple non-overlapping videos a bit later in the blog.

We took a whale/glacier watching tour trip as part of our Denali trip.  We were in Seward, which is not even close to Denali.

The day was chilly, foggy, overcast, and raining.   Just another typical weather day in Alaska.   Karen was out snapping photos in the rain and captured me in the background to the left of this sign.
The Seward waterfront. I found it surprisingly clean, well maintained, and appropriately developed (not run down and not overly touristy).

Note the two girls off to the right in this photo.   We ended-up sitting next to them aboard.   They were a lot of fun and very nice people.   They are friends who have known each other since pre-school.  How cool is that?
This is a view of the inner harbor/marina.   Very nice.
And we were here…
This is our tour boat.   A nice 75’-80’ catamaran.   Very stable and fast.
And here we are aboard the tour boat next to the two girls from our earlier photo.
Coming out of Resurrection Bay heading towards the Aialik Glacier, our sightseeing destination.
We were served a lunch of forgettable chicken burritos and while we were eating we cruised in the calm waters of Mary’s Bay on Rugged Island.

These old piers are all that is left of the WWII dock that was used to land supplies to the station that was kept on the other side (ocean side) of this island.

We crossed over the 10 miles of open ocean known as the Harding Gateway in 7’ confused seas at 25knots.   There were numerous sufferers of “mal de mer”, including at least three fairly significant cases.
We made it, but I was worried about a few people that would gladly have chosen death over seasickness if given the choice.

And this is the Aialik Glacier.   A beautiful tidewater glacier.   Below are a number of photos of this same glacier.






All in, we spent about an hour near the glacier, then it was time to scoot back to the marina.   Our captain decided to do a bit of sightseeing on the way back.




Spire Bay.





A colony of seagulls clinging to the rocky outcroppings.

Stellar seal lions (mom and 3 pups), the second largest sea lion species, behind the ginormous elephant seals.

And then we encountered this humpback whale.  I only captured a short series of videos, but this exhibition lasted for over 25 minutes before we had to leave to get back to the dock in time for some guests to catch their train.


The Naturalist aboard and the Captain both declared that they had never witnessed anything like this (I don’t think they say that to all the tour groups).   That was totally awesome.

As we were nearing our slip in the marina.

Karen & I hiked around town, did some minor shopping and met back up with our group for dinner at Ray’s Waterfront Bar & Grill.   I had the fresh halibut Andaman over basmati rice.   Delish!   Karen had the sablefish (aka black cod) which was reportedly excellent as well.

When we emerged from Ray’s the skies had cleared, so we finally got to see some of the Chugach Mountain range.
 


Back at the Windsong Lodge in Seward.
Me, getting ready to head in and crash for the night!


















Good Night, My Friends.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 7, 2026 at 12:05 AM

    Wow! That whale was all about showing off for (or scaring off?) you vessel! The fin slaps were especially entertaining! I truly have never seen that before. Thanks for sharing!

    How is it sleeping again where you’re not rocked all night? Does it take a couple of nights to get used to your land legs again?

    ReplyDelete
  2. PeterJuly 7, 2026 at 12:12 AM

    That whale was really a sight to behold. That behavior is clearly intentional, but we don’t know what it means.

    I much prefer sleeping on my boat. It’s the best waterbed in the world!

    ReplyDelete

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