Alaska – Seward (2 June 2007)

After a quick review of the map, I decided to fly to Alaska rather than drive. The trip started well when my coat (which had previously had no use for five weeks, other than to take up valuable car space) remained on the plane without me. Unfortunately, I didn't realise until five minutes after the aircraft had taken off again in the direction of Boise... with my coat still on board. But undeterred, and slightly unclothed, I headed to Anchorage to meet Canada Da.

The next morning, we made a quick diversion to the local market which resulted in me becoming the proud owner of an Alaskan fleece and a wooden frog. Two items it's impossible to live without.

Seward was the next stop where we ventured onto a boat to hunt down some wildlife (in the British sense, which doesn't involve guns). It soon became apparent that I attract dangerous wildlife on the water in the same way I attract the things on land. Within five minutes of setting sail, a pod of killer whales decided to surround the boat - I felt as if I was in a hostage situation. At least the bears have never ganged up on me.

The lively boat commentator (also known as the captain) couldn’t believe 'our luck', especially when this scenario was repeated three more times. Apparently he has never seen so many killer whales on one trip. Obviously he’s never had me onboard.



We saw lots of other wildlife, including porpoises which surfed alongside the boat, seals and some particularly cute puffins to name but a few.









We also spied a bit of a glacier falling into the water which was cool, literally.








I couldn’t sleep after all that excitement so felt the need to stay up until 1am to have this picture taken. I like this 21 hours of light per day thing.