Day 7: August 27, 2000
Kayaking in Resurrection Bay

The alarm went off at 7:30 and it was raining out so we decided to cancel our reservation to go kayaking. I think we were both kind of tired and draggy anyway. Walendo called to cancel and the guy reminded us that we could come to the 1pm afternoon or 6pm evening tour, which seemed possible. We slept till around 9 and at that point it wasn't raining, just overcast. It seemed like it might have been okay to go out after all, oh well. Walendo called his Irish brother Rob to see how he was doing -- the wake is today and the funeral tomorrow. Apparently he was doing okay, though none of it was easy. Walendo again felt bad that he wasn't going to be at the wake, but Rob said it was completely understandable.

We both felt a little unmotivated and had trouble figuring out what to do. Neither of us really like Seward that much -- it seems mostly run down and touristy and there's not a good place to sit and enjoy the view when it's wet out. I started to have regrets about missing the full-day kayak, so we thought we'd try to find one tomorrow and go to the Exit Glacier today. Turns out the Alaska Kayak Camping Co's all-day tour was booked for tomorrow, and the other tour place we'd seen was also booked, so we decided to instead go on the half-day tour this afernoon, then tomorrow go to Exit Glacier and head out a day early, staying in some town on the way up to Denali Highway. So we told the hotel attendant we'd be leaving a day early and she said if they booked the room we'd get our money back. She said chances are very good.

It was now around 10:30 or so, so we decided to have an early lunch at the Seward Bakery, which we heard made delicious soups and bread. Turned out that they didn't serve soup until 11:30, so we wandered along the harbor strip and checked out the shops, though we didn't buy anything. Eventually, we made our way back and I had soup in a bread bowl while Walendo had a chicken salad sandwich and soup. His sandwich was especially good -- once again I'd wished I'd gotten what he had. This seems to keep happening. Still, the soup hit the spot.

We went back to the room to change for kayaking. Walendo managed to take a little nap in the short time (not making any snoring noises, of course), and then we headed down there. We were the first ones there, a little before 1pm, so we paid and he put on a video that was essentially a marketing video of their other tours. They go for a week and kayak among the glaciers, which was pretty cool. Two women arrived shortly after us, Melissa and Penny, and then another group of three came, followed by another three, apparently the six of them were together. It took quite some time to get us all equipped with our gear, but eventually we made it to the beach. This was with Alaska Kayak & Camping Company. The guy seems a little offbeat, and he was pretty casual about explaining things, so people weren't always sure what they were supposed to do. Since we'd just gone a couple of days ago, we showed a few people how to put things on and such. He made a big point of saying how big and stable and expensive these boats are. They were indeed much bigger and these we much more comfortable for Walendo. I could even cross my legs Indian style in front of me, which was nice.

Kayaking on Resurrection Bay

We helped people get in and then got into our boat. (We got the only purple boat, which made me happy.) As we waited for everyone to be ready, we said hello to one couple that was from New York, one from Westchester the other from the city. We told them where we grew up and then we were off; that was the extent of that conversation. There was an otter hanging out off the coast, so we went to check it out, but it dove under before we got there and it resurfaced in the wrong direction, so we didn't really get to check it out. Off we went, up the coast. As we went, fish were jumping out of the water all around us, it was really something. It's almost as if they were doing it to taunt the fishermen, who were fishing all along the coast. Walendo asked Don, the guide, why they jump and he said no one knows for sure. Some people think they're shaking off some kind of fish life, others think it pushes their eggs down, and others say just cuz they can. Some of them came fully out of the water, amazing.

Ellen & Walendo kayaking

It didn't take us long to paddle up the coast. In fact, Walendo and I managed to be in front most of the way, we seemed to paddle faster than the others. About a mile up, we came to a fresh water inlet feeding into the bay and Don said to paddle up in it. As we went, we saw dozens of salmon swimming below us. There were also a bunch of dead fish, who apparently had already spawned (they die after they spawn). As we got further in, there were hundreds, all swimming up against the tide. After a ways, we beached the boats and got out for a walk. Don said they were mostly coho and chum salmon, and showed us how to tell the difference. The coho were smaller and were black with white bellies. The chum were bigger and seemed to have multiple colors along their backs. Some were huge. We took a little bridge over the river and then walked up along the path. We got to the point where they were spawning. They'd flap their tails madly as they made their way up the river and then landed in a little protected area and wiggle away. He pointed out one fish that was laying her eggs, though you couldn't really tell. Don was wearing wet boots, so we waded into the stream, which was pretty shallow and wandered around, checking things out. There was one fish that was flopping around, apparently lost, and when he went over to get it, its eyes were gone -- they'd been eaten by a bird, yuck. We watched the fish flop around a bit more and then went back on the trail. Don pointed out blueberries (I ate one, it was kind of bitter) and salmonberries. Then he took us to a homestead, a small old shack that some guy had been fighting to live in for ages and finally he'd gotten his permit to stay. It was a tiny shack lifted up on big tree stumps and it looked like it could have falled apart any day. Don said he was a retired ferry man. When he was working, he'd be on for 2 weeks and off for 2, and he'd come here to get away from things during his time off.

Inlet off Resurrection Bay

We headed back along the trail to the boats. The trail was really lush with rich greenery. There were odd looking treets with bulbs of moss-like texture on them, they looked like out of a haunted forest or something. On the way back, Walendo (as he often does) offered to take Melissa & Penny's picture for them, which they accepted. Penny said she'd taken a picture of us in our boat and she'd mail it to us when she got it back, which was nice but didn't seem likely. When we got back to the boats, the tide had receded quite a bit and we had to hurry to get all the boats back in the water before getting stranded there. Our boat was last, and Don had to walk us a fair way before we had enough clearance. Seemed like he might have been a little more careful about the tide, but I guess it worked out okay. We went back out to the bay and continued on for a ways, looking for seals but we didn't find any. After a ways, Don said we should turn back, so we did. Walendo and I seemed to keep getting ahead of the others so we'd float for a while every now and then to let them catch up. We were stroking in unison and we were really moving a long, it felt really good. We both really like the feeling of being out there, stroking along, feeling the peacefulness. More fish kept jumping away, and one even jumped against one of the other's boats.

We mostly just paddled back, though at one point I looked up and saw a bald eagle sitting fairly low down in the trees. We paddled a little closer and we must have been no more than 20 yards away, it was amazing. I tried to take some shots of it, but zoomed all the way in from a rocking boat, I'll be surprised if they look like anything but a white splotch in some fuzzy trees. A little while later, Don pointed out another one, this one way up high in the trees. We didn't see any more otters or wildlife (except the many birds of course) the rest of hte way back, but we enjoyed the paddling. We got back around 4:45, probably spending only about 3 hours out, but it was fun. We dragged the boats back up and returned all the gear. As we were getting ready to go, Penny asked me to write down our address so she could send us the pictures she took, which really impressed me. I didn't really expect her to do that, and it was nice of her to ask. (Of course Walendo's paranoid joke is that they'll probably go there tomorrow to rob us, silly boy.) We said goodbye to all, and left.

We went back out for an early dinner. I figured I'd get one of the yummy sandwiches at the bakery since it was before 6pm, but nonetheless, they were closed again. Sheesh. We ended up going to a fish & chips place we hadn't noticed last night. It was pretty informal and inexpensive, which was what we wanted. Walendo got halibut & chips and I just had some soup. But then of course I had to get my ice cream, and this time they did have chocolate. We walked back to the hotel, and settled in. Walendo called his mom to find out how the wake had gone (fine, was his summary after he got off the phone), and he said he felt okay about not being there now. Meanwhile, I checked with the desk and they haven't rented our room yet, but they did rent the one other room that was open, and the woman thought it was very likely it would go on the day if not the night before, so we decided to risk it and we'll head out tomorrow (after visiting Exit Glacier). Walendo called his friend Andy in Anchorage to see if we could hook up tomorrow on our way through there, but again it sounds like it probably won't work out. We'll call when we get close, but it sounds doubtful. He recommended a place we could stay past Anchorage on our way to Richardson Highway up to Denali Highway, so we called. It was listed in Frommer's at $95 but they quoted us at $125, sigh. Everyplace is expensive. Anyway, the rest of the evening, Walendo's been reading on the bed and I've been catching up on the last two days. We'll listen to a little more Harry Potter and then sleep.

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