today we did a day trip to whittier, alaska – about 100mi just outside anchorage. whittier is a pretty cool place for a few reasons: it has a 2.5mi tunnel through a mountain to access it; it has some cool american military history; and it is the gateway to the beautiful Prince William Sound area.
we hopped onto another wildlife cruise. it was a gorgeous day, although a bit chilly for those of us who didn’t sit on our butts inside the heated cabin all day 😉 to add to our enormous list of wildlife we’ve seen, today we spotted: black tipped kitty hawks (gull family), sea otters and their pups, harbour seals, and salmon near a hatchery – jumping wildly out of the ocean before heading into the freshwater to spawn! very cool! i also need to point out the fantastic highlight of the trip – we saw 3 humpback whales; 3 active humpback whales. the one continually repeated doing full body breaches out of the water! this is a rare sight – most people do get to see a whale do 1 full body breach, but this one little guy was super active and just playing away! jamie got some fantastic shots – i didn’t get any – so we’ll have to share with everyone when the photos are up on his flickr site.
we also checked out a wetland area called Potter Marsh, about 1mi outside of anchorage. we saw more black tipped kitty hawks, but also artic turings feeding their babies and a muskrat 🙂
jenbacca 