alaska by water

The second half of our trip was spent in, on, and all around the beautiful waters of Alaska. First we went to Whittier to go on an all-day trip with the family-owned and operated Lazy Otter Charters. With completely tailored trips offered, and a family that lives in Whittier year-round, it is the perfect company to go with if you want to get out on the beautiful Alaskan water into Prince William Sound.

We headed out, flying by waterfalls and glaciers, to watch some of the many salmon fishers doing their difficult and tiring work.

 

 

 

Out we headed, past the loud, smelly, angsty islands of sea lions...

 

 ...past the puffins, and past a 10 minute show by the dall porpoise (which look just like mini killer whales) dancing in the water to stay near the pressure of the bow (you can see a video of them here, but note that it's not mine, as I was too excited to get a good video). 

We ended at a quiet spot with changing tides to eat our sandwiches with eagles flying overhead, before heading out kayaking with some playful otters.

 

 

 

 

Next, we found a private island and hopped off to enjoy some cookies, skipping rocks, and illegally swimming in the 40degree water...

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a long day, we headed back to land to go out to dinner at Seven Glaciers (which I'll show you tomorrow).

 

  

 The next day we all headed out to Cooper Landing for an all-day horseback riding tour of the area (begrudgingly for T).

 

 

Our final day on the water was spent salmon fishing on the Upper Kenai Pennisula...where I caught zero salmon but I did catch a 5lb rainbow trout!

 

 

Luckily, we caught some salmon, and our guide was nice enough to freshly grill some up right on the boat! Sadly, I'll never be able to eat non-fresh salmon again, because I have been absolutely spoiled by the fresh-out-of-the-water salmon which tasted nothing like the salmon I had ever had before. Now, all salmon tastes fishy to me, even the non-fishy ones, which is really too bad!

 

 

 

After our long day on another boat, we headed back to rest, driving by eagles, and this massive moose that decided it was a good time to cross the road. Why did the moose cross the road? I think he was just trying to get to the other side...heh heh heh.

 

 

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silver salmon creek lodge

Towards the middle-end of our time in Alaska, our plan was to go with Mark from Air Madura to Brooks Falls for some famous bear-watching. When Mark picked us up, he told us it'd be better worth our time to go to a smaller space where the professional photographers in-the-know were going, so we trusted him and headed off. We left Anchorage for Lake Clark National Park in Cook Inlet to the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge.

 

 

 

 

We arrived and landed gracefully in a lake of lily pads, the way I hope to arrive on all of my future vacations.

 

 

 

 

 

After already being awed by our surrounding, we were whisked off  immediately by a guide in an ATV to view our first bears!
 

 

 

We trudged through the tall grass, following each move our guide made, holding our breaths out of fear. Is he really going even closer to that massive animal? Do I have to follow him and also go this close?! We closed our eyes and followed, and thank goodness we did. We were immersed in this close behavior for two days, feeling close to nature and having even more of an adrenaline rush than the time T and I tried sky-diving.
 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a break from the viewing to have some delicious as-local-as-you-can-get salmon with the best biscuits in the whole world before being visited by a 3-year old bear in camp and heading out for even more bear-viewing.
 

 

 

 

 

 

We headed back to camp and by 11:30pm the sun was pretending to set, so a bonfire was started while a midnight game of basketball and soccer went on. We tucked in late and woke up nice and early to get some last bear-viewing in before we sadly had to head off.
 

 

 

 

 

Sadly, our time had come to a close, and we had to say our goodbyes. I was hoping to be left behind, as I could actually live there forever, as could T, but we were found and dragged back to the plane. We headed out to find one of the bajillion (an almost-factual statistic) lakes and ponds in the area to land wherever we wanted and do some fishing before heading back to the real-world in Anchorage.
 

 

 

 

 

 

We continue to talk about how the highlight of the entire trip to Alaska was the couple of days we spent with Mark from Air Madura, and everyone at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, from the owners David and Joanne, and David's son Oliver to the beyond-interesting chef and all of the staff. We immediately felt like we had been visiting for every year for our entire lives. Such warmth and happiness was felt on every inch of the area and it was contagious. I cannot recommend enough a trip out to see them, and the bears, or even just for some remote relaxation. Of note, don't be alarmed if you are the only non-professional photographer there. We sat with many highly-respected photographers that were surprised to hear that we were not there for our profession, and were very curious as to how we even had found Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, but remained some of the nicest and modest people I have met.

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