This tour had been one of the choices on our travel agent's list, rather than a little secret I discovered by poking around on the web, like the Kennicott Wilderness Guides glacier trek. I had been concerned when I found out about the size of the boat, that it would be overcrowded and too big to get close to any of the most special sights. But this was not the case at all, and I would recommend Kenai Fjords Tours to anyone visiting the Seward area. Our Oregonian friends, Dan and Carlyn, had taken Kenai Fjords Tours' Captain's Choice tour, which goes out on a boat with only 16 passengers. I tried to change to that one instead, but it was full. While I'm sure the Captain's Choice would have been a fantastic experience, the Explorer went as far into the fjords as a much smaller boat we saw. And it was not crowded; they told me they typically only sell between 75-120 seats, while the boat holds 150 passengers. On the recommendation of National Geographic Traveler's Alaska, I had picked the tour that went furthest into the fjords, to Northwestern Fjord, a nine-hour adventure. There were hardly any cruise passengers on the Explorer, because they don't have that much time in the harbor, and they usually need to catch the Alaska Railroad. So this tour was full of adventurers like us who were seeing Alaska in a different way.
The crew was spectacular. Our captain, Bob, was a terrific spotter and very knowledgeable about the birds we saw. The crew had three naturalists. Noak was a marine mammal specialist, Chris was a bird specialist, and Mike had a general science background and a whole lot of enthusiasm. Each one was full of information. These naturalists have to work not only as tour guides, but also as servers and mariners, and they did a fantastic job. Noak let me use a set of the boat's binoculars free when I found out that I had left mine at the hotel. Everyone, including the staff at the desk on shore, was personable and friendly. To make things even better, a birder named Bob was on board as a passenger, and he gathered all the other birders at the bow to spot together. The bow had both indoor and outdoor areas, so we could go outside and spot in warmer places, and look through the windows inside on the colder parts of Resurrection Bay. Bob and his wife were from Arizona, escaping from the heat by spending the whole summer driving around Alaska in an RV. Ah, retirement.
We saw so much on this tour, so very many things, that I'll have to divide this tour into separate pages.
On to the Alaska SeaLife Center.