Northwest Glacier and Humpback

Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Seward, Alaska, United States
The humpback breached immediately we saw it. Then it breached again. And again. We thought it was normal behavior, and stopped taking pictures, little knowing we would spend the rest of the day hoping to see a whale -- much less having it jump out of the water in front of us. We became so worked up, that the sighting of a fluke as a humpback dived was created with applause. Our boat with its fifty tourists out of Seward was much more Nature oriented than the previous tour. We saw sea birds in all their infinite variety, harbor and Stellar seals, whales and otters. We were agog. The sun shone until we reached the glaciers, at which point it clouded over. A chill wind blows off a glacier. You feel it as soon as you approach. It kind of says -- keep your distance -- or I'll drop a few tons of ice on your head. The harbor seals and pups hanging out on the ice floes at the base of the glaciers were the stars of the afternoon.  Contrary to prediction and expectation, the sun came out, the day stayed clear, and we went from seabird rookery to seal roosting rock all afternoon, returning to Seward with our ears ringing with the squawks and barking.

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