On this cruise we are constantly going through different time zones as we cruise back through a 17 hour time difference and also crossing the date line. So, on quite a few evenings we have to set out clock back an hour for the next day. We on the day we arrived in Seward, we had set the clock back an hour when we didn’t need to and ( along with a few other passengers) as a result we missed our planned shore excursion for the day – a trip out on a boat to see wildlife. So once we realised our mistake we changed to another shore excursion to the Sea Life Centre and to Exit Glacier.
Seward is only a small town, usual population is around 2000 people in the off tourist season. As we docked you could see we were in a beautiful bay with clifftops mostly covered with snow. The clouds were still covering the tops of most of the mountains earlier in the day,
The Sea Life centre is not far from the port and we spent some time there looking around – there were some very colourful creatures there.
These puffin birds were very chubby and cute.
Seward is in Resurrection Bay, this was the area where the Russians started boat building in Alaska.
We went for a walk around town, some shops had already shut down for the winter. Signs like this were common in Ketchikan and Juneau where many shops only open for the tourist season.
Once again we were fortunate to have perfect, sunny weather! So far we’ve had no rain at all on any shore days. The mountains are just at the edge of town and the town area is similar size or smaller to Oberon.
After walking around town it was time to take a bus trip out to the glacier. The forests here are all changing colours at the moment. The areas all have this amazing backdrop of snow or ice covered mountains. The outdoors here is really beautiful- and a bit different to Juneau.
After about an hours drive we arrived at Exit Glacier. You can see it in the middle of the pic.
After getting the warnings to stand still if we saw a bear and run if we saw a moose – get behind a tree if they put their head down as you’re about to get charged- we decided to do the walk up to the bottom of the glacier, about 90 minutes return.
The forest at the end of ‘fall’ was lovely.
Here we are at the end of our walk – at the base of Exit Glacier. While it was nice and sunny and no wind down at the start of our walk – the wind up here was really strong and very cold!
The view from up there was amazing! its hard to convey how vast the landscape is in these places.
We took a different walking route down to the bottom. They have a sign there where people can leave a note about wildlife sightings.
It was another great day out walking. Back on board and we had the reminder for the correct time change for that night!
We had a stunning sunset that night as we sailed out of Resurrection Bay – but I forgot to take my camera up on deck – so I snapped this one via the porthole just as it was ending.
After this we started our 5/6 day crossing which will take us to Russia. Each day we moved the clock back and yesterday we crossed the international date line and lost a day.
Last night we had winds of 60kms/hour and 5metre waves – we had quite a bit of roll on the ship and it woke us up when some our things went sliding off the bench. Its no where near as rough as our last trip to Japan though. There is a typhoon expected to hit Japan in the next 2-3 days which may impact our route however it should be passed before we get to Tokyo so nothing to worry about.
Next stop is Petropavlosk Russia tommorrow!