I had really wanted to go kayaking around the Kenai peninsula. I went ahead and used my rare cell phone coverage to call a few companies and book this trip as I drove through Anchorage on my way from Denali down to Seward on the Kenai peninsula. One of the companies mentioned something about them having bad weather lately, but since it was sunny in Anchorage I brushed this off. I'm pretty sure the company I ended up going with did not mention this weather issue, since the person I spoke with on the phone pretty much told me nothing that I would need to know, and what he did tell me turned out to be misinformation. The kayaking place also had a campground and some cabins, so he told me I could camp for free or stay in a cabin for $30. When I arrived around 9pm, however, the people at the desk handed me a credit card receipt to sign for the cabin...for $80. After we cancelled that plan, they handed me another receipt to sign for the kayak trip the next day--again about $50 more expensive than what I had been told. Then I talked to the guide, mentioning a few more things that I thought I was getting the next day, to which he responded with a laugh and, "who told you that?" Oh, I also forgot to mention that the road from town to this campground/kayaking place was about 2 miles long and COVERED in potholes. You actually could not drive on this road without hitting about 10 potholes/car length. And it was raining.
After re-negotiating the entire kayaking trip, I decided to stick with it, so I returned at 5am the following day for my boat taxi out to Aialik Bay. It was still raining. They told us the seas had been really bad, but they were supposed to be better that day, and even better that very afternoon, before 20-foot swells hit the next day, so we had in theory a brief window of opportunity to boat out to Aialik. However they weren't really sure what they'd find when we got out there, and they might turn around and bring us back. Or we might get stuck in the bay and have to camp there until the seas calmed down and the boat could come back and get us. Great. About 10 minutes into the "water taxi" we exited Resurrection Bay and hit the Gulf of Alaska...where we were met by enormous waves. I'd guess we were on a 15 foot boat, which would lurch over the top of a huge wave, hesitate in midair for half a second (which seemed like eternity), then slam down 5 feet into the ocean, only to be hit by the next huge wave. The windows were all fogged up by the rain, but I could tell when we were about to hit another one because our comical boat driver would take both his hands off the wheel and dance a little jig like he was playing on a drum set while he waited for the boat to fall down into the water again. One might call this a fantastic rollercoaster ride included in the kayaking price for free, as the driver tried to convince us. Might. Fortunately the waters were calm again in the bay where we were planning to kayak, as I was seriously concerned about kayaking in these rough (and icy cold) waters. Just as the boat drove away and we pushed off into the water in our kayaks, it started raining harder.
However, despite the rain, the kayaking was amazing. Actually the rain had apparently increased the size and number of the hundreds of waterfalls that were flowing down the steep green mountains that rose up around us. Just as we were starting, a sea otter swam close to shore to check us out, floating on his back and eating off his belly. As we went around the corner I saw a huge glacier rising up from the water like a blue cliff on one side of the bay, with chunks of broken-off ice floating around. All I could hear was the sound of waterfalls rushing down the mountains, occasionally punctuated by a low rumble and crash as the glacier calved off another chunk of ice. Oh, and the sound of raindrops falling on my head. Hundreds of seals were in the bay, and they often came close to my kayak, poking up just their eyes and noses to see what was going on and sometimes splashing their tails at us as they dove back underwater. When we kayaked toward the glacier, I could hear and feel the small icebergs scraping along under my kayak. The closer we got, the pieces of ice were so close together I couldn't make a full paddle stroke, and had to wait for my kayak to slowly shove the ice aside. We ate lunch on a hill next to the glacier, and saw two huge pieces fall off into the sea. The calving starts as tiny scattered pieces near the top, but each piece knocks off a bigger piece as it hits the lower ice along the way, until sometimes an enormous portion crumbles and falls all at once. On shore we saw bear tracks, and as we took off a black bear came out onto the beach and we were able to follow from the sea in our kayaks as it lumbered along the beach.
After lunch we paddled over to a second tidewater glacier. (I'll insert that at this point I realized that my arms were really tired. And I was soaking wet from the constant rain. I wasn't sure whether I should keep paddling and ignore my whining muscles, or take a rest which would inevitably cause my teeth to start chattering from the cold if I wasn't actively exercising to stay warm.) This second glacier was up inside a lagoon, so that if you timed it right you went in as the tide came in, and let the tide pull you back out again. Apparently we spent some extra time looking at the bear and were late, so the tide was already pushing us out. When our guide said, "ok we're just going to power through against this current to get in there," I was exhausted and hoping it was a joke. Apparently he was serious so I reluctantly gritted my teeth and followed the group. After we got through into the lagoon though, the current stilled and I saw huge blue icebergs all around me. The other glacier had been a cliff with small 1-3 foot pieces of ice floating around it, but this one came down almost flat into the water and put off huge icebergs that were floating 5-20 feet above the water surface, and who knows how deep. They were all different shades of this perfect crystal blue, and all different shapes and sizes. It was amazing to paddle among them and watch them float. On the way out of this lagoon, we got to take it easy and float on the outgoing tide. Another member of the group pointed out a bald eagle sitting on a dead tree limb on shore. I'd never seen one before, so I paddled closer to check it out. After stopping to take a photo I turned around to see which way the group had gone, and was met by a freaking huge wave. And another one. Holy shit, where did these 3-foot waves come from!? What happened to my flat, calm bay!!?? Was this going to continue for the rest of the trip? I was definitely going to capsize, and soaking wet though I was, the glacier-melt water was definitely going to be much colder. Does paddling even help when your kayak is going straight up in the air? I decided to start paddling as hard as I could and after only 10 waves or so it was mysteriously (and wonderfully) flat again. That damn eagle nearly killed me, but since I didn't capsize it was actually a fun rush. The trip was already so amazing that I can't imagine how amazing it would have been if it had actually been 70 and sunny instead of 50 and rainy (which everyone from Seward kept telling me it had been for 2 wks straight just before my arrival...what timing).
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