Another early morning. In order to disembark the ship successfully, we woke up at 6am. Our bags had disappeared from the hallway outside of our stateroom, hopefully whisked off to the dock where we would pick them up later in the day. Bleary eyed, we made our way up to the buffet room, helped ourselves to one last wonderful buffet breakfast, complete with made-to-order omelets, smoked Alaska salmon with capers and cream cheese, crunchy hash browns and tasty pastries. Really, it was the coffee we were looking forward to the most.
We returned to our stateroom one last time, brushed our teeth and threw the last of our belongings into our carry on bags. Then we headed up to yet another bar, the Colony Club, to wait for our colored number, Gray 4, to be called.
Once our number was called, we walked through the ship, off the gangplank and onto land. We were off the ship for good! We claimed our luggage, and followed a guide through to our bus for the day. After we deposited our luggage in a rental truck, which would be locked up for the duration of the day, we boarded the bus with a VERY enthusiastic native Alaskan bus driver who was overjoyed to tell us all about the history of Alaska and Seward, in a very loud, very irritating voice, considering how early we had gotten off the boat. She told us about the devastating earthquake of 1964, which destroyed 90% of Seward’s industry, a loss from which they have never recovered. Out in the water surrounding the city, there are still ruins of their old piers, railroad tracks and warehouses that fell into the sea after 5 minutes of earth rumbling.
Our bus driver left us in “downtown” Seward, yet another city with basically a single main drag. We explored a little, finding a lovely coffee shop with free wi-fi, and a cool store with kitchy souvenirs. I bought a great red hooded sweatshirt with a logo of the Alaska Beer we had been drinking in every port, brewed in Juneau. I think it will be funny to wear a sweatshirt that says “Alaska Summer” in the winter in Florida. Mom bought a puffin Christmas ornament too, since she was still hoping to see puffins.
After 2 hours in downtown Seward, our bus driver returned to collect us and take us down to the small boat harbor, where our afternoon’s entertainment was waiting. We boarded the Star of the Northwest, a smaller ship that holds just over 200 people for a bout tour that would take us into the waters surrounding Seward, including the coast line of the Kenai Fjords National Park. The ship had a National Park ranger on board, and she was even conducting a junior ranger program, much to the delight of Martha and Sam, who had gotten Junior Ranger badges at both Klondike parks and Mount Rainier in Seattle. A 4th badge was even enough to keep Martha’s mind off of the rocking ship!
Part of the cruise package included lunch on the ship, and boy were we surprised at how good it was. It was an all you can eat buffet of silver salmon and beef tenderloin, as well as salad, black bean pilaf and desserts. The beef had this amazing cranberry-horseradish sauce that I will now spend months trying to recreate. The consensus among all of us was, best meal we had eaten on the whole trip. As hard as the chefs on the Radiance of the Seas had worked, the cook in the galley of the Star of the Northwest blew them all out of the water.
The captain of the ship had noticed Dad’s Hampshire College hat as we boarded the ship and mentioned that he spent his winters in Hartford, CT. He invited Dad to come up and see him in the wheel house once we got off the dock and into the open waters. It didn’t take us long to realize that the captain’s wheel house had the best view, as well as protection from the cold, wind and rain. Dad told the captain that Mom had spent the entire week looking for puffins and he guaranteed both Mom and Dad that she would see some on this trip. Sure enough we rounded a corner in one cove and there were hundreds of them, Horned Puffins and Tufted Puffins, frantically trying to remain aloft. The captain mentioned he thought they looked like football with wings, and he wasn’t far wrong. Every single one of them looked surprised they were airborn and especially anxious to find solid ground again. Mom was in heaven. We also saw 2 sea otters, 2 herds of sea lions on the rocks, and way up in the hills, 2 mountain goats, eating their fill of mountain side greens. Crazy! The weather was cold, wet and rainy, but we had a blast anyway. What a great final excursion!
