Water from a Stone

The boat captain had eagle eyes.  He spotted a newborn seal pup and its mom from several hundred feet off shore.  I had to use zoom to even find them on the rocks.  He took caution to quiet the engine and not approach any closer but quietly go past out of respect for this precious little baby.  Apparently an approach could cause the mom to abandon the baby, so I was happy to take long distance shots once I trained my eye to which specks on the shore that they were.

The babies, er pups, are funny looking little things!  This little pup was quite happy to rub noses with mom, who even though we tried to float by quietly had noted our presence and  rolled/wobbled a little closer to her baby.

Here we see seal snuggling.  I haven't seen many seals, and to be honest I didn't know harbour seals were spotted.  I guess i thought leopard seals would be the spotted seals...so I learned something new on my adventure!

Anyway, took a few snapshots of these neat little creatures on the home stretch back to Seward.  The baby was quite young.  Apparently they will be weaned after about 6 weeks, and can swim and dive at birth....so was nice to see them sunning themselves in the spring light.

I think mom may have been sending us the evil eye here.

 And here she is sure we are finally floating out of range...glad we didn't disturb them much.

After that it there was enough time to enjoy a fresh from the oven warm chocolate chip cookie that the crew had prepared for us, and round a few more bends getting back to Seward.

Back in town we went for an excellent meal at Ray's Waterfront.  Alaska salmon and Alaska King Crab legs...absolutely delicious!  We finished it off with an ice cream cone from across the road, like typical tourists, and enjoyed an early evening drive back to Anchorage.

Turnagain Arm was calm and relaxed, and in honor of a rare Thursday off work, so was I!

There was also time to do something else I had been meaning to do...get a nice, cool, refreshing drink of ultra filtered water...purified by the rock itself.  Right along the road, there is a little pipe that comes through the rock...water from spring melt high up in the mountains makes its way here, and seeps throught the porous rocks, popping out right here.  I often see people filling jugs of water...so decided to pull over, run across the road, and try a mug of water.  Excuse my rather dishevelled experience...after a long day of wildlife, glaciers, and wind on the boat deck, well...this is the end result.  But that water was taaaaaasty!  Note the moose mug...I am shamelessly still a tourist-resident and buying all this bear moose and wolf these days.

And that was the end of a great day in Seward :)  Til next time...