Snorkeling in Alaska

Crazy?!?! No. The water temperature was about 50 degrees and we were lucky enough to go on a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the mid 70s. First off, putting on that 7 mm wetsuit was a workout.DSC_2028.jpg

If you didn’t work up a sweat doing that, then you’re pretty unusual. By the time we got to the water, we couldn’t wait to get in.  The only problem is that you had the mobility of that kid from “A Christmas Story”. You could barely move. But we all managed to waddle down to the water and get in. All eight of us.

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I can’t put my arms down!

I was expecting shockingly cold water, the kind that makes you pee instantly. But it didn’t happen. I was not cold at all. Then I stuck my face in the water. Woo hoo! Wake up call! It was shocking for a couple of seconds but then all was good.

So what do you get to see in the waters of Alaska? It’s very murky, moreso than I expected, but there are so many starfish and sea slugs and jellyfish. Oh, and fish too. If you’re lucky, you might even see some seals or whales. We were lucky enough to see some Orcas spouting a good distance away. As much as I’d like to see them up close, there’s a reason you don’t see seals and otters when the Orcas are in town. And I didn’t want to be mistaken for a seal.

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These jellyfish are really small.

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A very colorful sea slug
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And another
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You can see how murky the water is here
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And here

We were only in the water for about 1.5 hours, but that’s plenty. At that point, I was starting to get cold, especially my finger tips. The first thing we did when we got out of the water is dump a bucket of room temperature water on ourselves. Oh yeah, that felt AWESOME!!! Like taking a nice warm bath!

And of course, the Dock Sunned shirt went along for the trip.

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