So shortly after starting work, I learned that the computer system for the whole facility would be changing the first week of May. For me that meant, in addition to getting used to a new country, new city, new home, new employer, new job description, I would also have to add in learning about the new-to-me-on-the-way-out computer system and give input into the still-in-design-brand-spanking new computer system. The computer expert for my department was located in Utah, and fortunately our brains work in a relatively similar fashion. There must have been a thousand fragmented spastic emails back and forth as thoughts were had, ammendums made, tests trialed, tweaked, scrapped, and accepted. Plus there were dozens of hours on the phone and webinars, conference calls, and sometimes even calls within conference calls. We worked really well together, and in the end made an amazing amount of progress in a short period of time. And so the person I have spent the most time with since I moved to Alaska is a former Micro tech turned LIS guru who lives in Utah. When the day came for "go live," the term for flicking the old computer system off and the new one on, we were very lucky that the corporation decided to send her to Alaska for 2 weeks as part of the transition team. It may not have been lucky for her, as she got the dubious privilege of sharing my office (which turns into a flurry of haphazardly posted sticky notes, papers, reports, and reference materials...truth -- I require both quiet and the space of 4 normal people to contain and make functional the chaos in which I find my most productive moments of genius.) There was only 1 (and a half) days off in those 2 weeks of otherwise 12-14 hour days, but we actually both got the same day off when it did happen. By this point the Utah friend would be the first new friend I would be going on an adventure with since I moved here (technically Sharon, Dave, and Stan are previously acquired friends -- at least ten years awesome friends actually -- but the title of First New Alaska Friend to go on an adventure goes to a resident of Utah).
So I was long overdue for a drive through beautiful Turnagain Arm. As my first opportunity to play tour guide, I was able to share the little I know so far...tales of the mud flats of Cook Inlet, where to stop to see the roofs of the houses in Hope, Beluga Point, where someone installed a pipe in the rockface that spews a constain stream of free, rock filtered glacial spring water. I was amazed again at how different it looked in the month since I had driven here last. The green makes a big difference!
Past Turnagain Arm, it was all unchartered territory as I headed down the road to Seward. Seward is named after the U.S. Secretary of State William Seward who arranged the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7 Million. I wasn't familiar with this part of American history until just a few short months ago, and not being American, there was a bit of a lapse in the connection of what else was going on in the 1860's in the U.S. William Seward was actually the leading contender for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party in 1860. He was beat out by one Abraham Lincoln though. His home was a stop on "The Underground Railroad," and on the night of President Lincoln's assassination in 1865, a simultaneous assassination attempt happened on Seward, who was stabbed 5 times in the neck and face. He survived, outliving Lincoln and the conspirators who were subsequently executed. He needed a few more years on this earth to acquire my new Alaska home. He visited Alaska, and managed a few more years of travel before dying in 1872. I am grateful his accomplishments brought this amazing place into the territory of North America.
And so me and a computer tech from Utah found our way to the Oceanside town that bears the name of that interesting U.S. historical figure. The plan was to hop aboard on of the glacier cruises that leave from there. There are several, but on the recommendation of my awesome Alaska boss, we tried the Kenai Fjords Tours.
Our cruise was set to be 6.5 hours, and we shuffled down the deck and hopped on board...The Orca Voyager.
At this time of year, they tell me the humpback whales migrate through. I know the Humpback Whales also cruise through Bermuda every March as well, but my attempts at whale watching there were thrwarted twice by bad weather, and the one year I did make it I spent a lot of money to freeze on a boat on a drizzly grim day and didn't see so much as a flipper. That said, my expectations were pretty low. I planned on getting some good scenic shots from the deck of the boat, since I haven't seen Alaska from the water before.
We were barely out of sight of the town of Seward when the boat slowed. The captain announced he thought he had seen a blow -- the spray of water resulting from a Humpback Whale when they surface for a breath. "Great...I finally am out on a day when someone see one and I missed it," I thought.
The boat bobbed on the water and we all stared out at the water, not exactly sure what to look for, or where. Suddenly, there was the spout of water again! It looks like a bit of smoke in the picture...but that's all I have to document a far away whale breath. The object to the left is part of the very large Humpback Whale below the surface.
Unfortunately, this is about as much as I saw of the Humpback Whales. Apparently those pictures where they leap out of the water and pose for the camera are rare. What I did see was several of the curvy humps moving through the water, and it kinda reminded me of the legends of the Loch Ness Monster. What I saw of the whale sounds like what others saw of Nessie.
Contented with my whale sighting, I contented myself with a few more scenic photos. We saw some porpoises splashing in the distance, some puffins just out of the range of the lens I had, and a very handsome rugged looking man with a camera very similar to mine, making the scenery in the boat pretty decent as well.
We headed towards the glacier, which allowed time for a boxed lunch on board the boat. We met a really neat group from the lower 48 who had been touring Alaska for 2 weeks and had a lot of great adventures so far. I need to get as well travelled in Alaska as the average tourist. I have much work to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment