OmegaMom

When OmegaDotter was a small thing (she’s not small to us, anymore, though everyone exclaims about how tiny she is, hmmm), she loved Free Willy.  It was, in fact, the first “real” movie we ever purchased for her, in a boxed three-movie set containing all the Willy movies.

Free Willy was the movie that inspired her to want to play the harmonica (the “carmonica”).  It also inspired a great love of all things Orca, so she has a collection of Orcas that, while in no way even approximating her horsie collection, is still pretty good.  Stuffed Orcas of all sizes.  Orca magnets.  Plastic Orcas.  Puzzles featuring Orcas.  Stretchy rubber Orcas.  One or two T-shirts with Orcas on them.

When we moved to Alaska, OmegaDad promised the dotter that we would take a boat upon the ocean and see Orcas.

While GrannyJ was in town, we wanted to actually do the touristy cruise thang.  OmegaDad, being the sort who worries, kept pestering me to make the reservations, because everyone knows that the cruises fill up fast.  I kept waving him off, assuring him that I’d do it, and to for Gawd’s sake stop pestering me!  In the meantime, we’ve been checking out cruise ship costs and itineraries and locations off and on for a while.

There were all these scrumptious “glacier” tours.  See 27 glaciers in one day! proclaimed one company.  See the fjords and glaciers of Kenai Fjords National Park!  Park rangers!  Narration!  Go here!  Do this!  See that!

I kept returning, however, to one cruise that really caught my attention–a wildlife cruise.  Y’know, when you’ve seen one glacier, you’ve seen them all.  (Okay, not really, but I didn’t want to do “just” glaciers.)  It started from a town that was further away than some of the others that I was looking at.  I sat there weighing the question:  one-and-a-half-hour drive to “see 27 glaciers!” or a three-hour drive to “see wildlife”?

After dithering and thinking and scrunching up my forehead in Deep Thought, Friday I made reservations for Saturday (so much for that “all booked up” worry) for the Resurrection Bay Wildlife Cruise, a noon departure with a stop at Fox Island for lunch.

We woke up at 6, we were out of the house at 7:20.  All the sunshine that GrannyJ has brought with her had disappeared–of course–so we drove through bouts of rain, oohing and aahing at lovely cloud sculptures and low-lying fog slipping in between mountain peaks.  We drove.  And drove.  And drove.  Large lakes.  Above the treeline.  Below the treeline.  New mountains.  Peeks of sunlight.

We arrived in Seward with plenty of time to spare, and enough time to let the dotter get bored and whiny.  We got on board.  We waited.  Any glimpses of sunlight started being covered over again.  The sky was leaden, the sea leaden as well.  And then we headed out.

I’d like to claim that the clouds parted, rays of sunlight fell upon us like melted butter, and a chorus of angels were singing, but, alas, no:  it remained chilly and grey.  Nonetheless, it was grand.  We motored out to the island at quite a clip, the wind picking up.  We arrived at the island, we ate, we wandered around the beach covered with The Very Best Skipping Stones, we skipped stones, we took pictures, we got back on the ship.  So far, the only wildlife we had seen was from afar, but we were all still enjoying it.

And then, as we motored further out, I caught sight of something breaking water.  I grabbed at OmegaDad, who was with me (the dotter and GrannyJ were inside the cabin on the lower deck), pointed, and we watched as something porpoise-like leaped out of the water a few times.  We couldn’t really tell what they were.  Then they were gone…we were past, there had been no chance to get the dotter to see, but OmegaDad went in and grabbed her “just in case”.  The captain hadn’t said anything about it, though he had been pointing out various birds as we cruised on, so OmegaDad and I figured that no-one had seen them.

And then the ship slowed down.  And then the ship started turning.  And then the captain came on the PA to announce that “we’ve sighted some small Orcas and we’re going to circle back”.  And the ship circled back.

And there they were.  Three to six small Orcas (really small).  The dotter was in the very bow of the ship–a perfect spot.  The Orcas spent five to ten minutes playing with us–swimming underneath the ship, swimming alongside the ship, breaching the water just in front of the bow of the ship over and over again.  We tried and tried to get pictures, but they were moving fast and this is the best we got.

It was wonderful.  It was grand.  The dotter was in heaven.  See this look of pure bliss?

There was lots more to the cruise–some absolutely spectacular wildlife sightings and groovy scenery.  Thousands of birds (puffins, cormorants, gulls, murres (?)) in huge rookeries.  Sea lions basking on the rocks.  Glaciers.  Rocky islands thrusting out of the sea.  The dotter, with her sharp eyes, found the jellyfish swimming in the ocean beneath us, and the purple and orange starfish clasping to the rocks at the shoreline.  GrannyJ caught some amazing bird pictures, with her amazing camera, and now I have a bad case of camera envy, because our little snapshot digicam doesn’t do birds or sea lions or long shots worth a damn.

Sooo.  If you ever come out to Alaska to the Seward area, and want to take a cruise, I highly recommend the Resurrection Bay Wildlife Cruise put on by Kenai Fjords Touring.  It is awesome, spectacular, wonderful.

And you get Orcas.

And if you’re the OmegaParents, you get to fulfill a long-time promise.