Alaska Diaries - Friend's Nightmare becomes my Beautiful reality!

So we had planned to end our trip by Kayaking next to the Aialik Glacier. It was a full day trip with a water taxi ride of 2.5 hrs one way, about 4 hours of Kayaking and then 2 hours back to Seward. We started at 7:30 AM from Seward, and were back at 6:30 PM in the evening.

From the shore where we started kayaking

Well, I don't know what makes me pick up some of these activities, considering that I don't know swimming, neither have I kayaked ever in my life. So to try this for the first time in an open ocean, was let's put it as Stupid. Hey, but it is me, and most of the times logic does not work well with me. And precisely the reason that my parents hear about it from me only after I get through it safely, to relieve them of the burden of being worried for me the whole time.

Anyway, so I was paired with Jacob, a college grad who was alone on this Kayaking tour. My friend and his wife were on another Kayak, and our guide Ryan on his Kayak. We started kayaking by the shore on the left till the glacier, while the other kayaking groups were going to head through the middle of the bay area till the glacier; and then each one of crossing over to the other path; making a loop; and not getting in each other's way.

While kayaking by the shore, almost an hour into kayaking, we were almost close to the Glacier, when we spotted a black bear, getting out of the water onto the shore, picking berries on its way. Ryan, the Guide is pretty fascinated by the bears, so were we. We kayaked pretty close to the shore; let's say Ryan and my kayak were just around 200-250 meters away from the shore. My friend and his wife, they stayed far off behind us, and did not close in. Apparently, they were trying to stop me as well from getting closer, if only I paid any attention :D

Anyway, I asked Jacob "You think we can Kayak further close to the shore".

Jacob asked Ryan "You think we can kayak faster than the bear if the bear swam towards us"

Hahaha - I had got my answer in his question :D

Ryan replied "Of course we can"

Aialik Glacier view

But we stayed where we were 200 meters away, looking at the bear through binoculars that Ryan had handed over to us. It was walking towards us picking the berries (or whatever) from the shrubs, but I kept telling myself, "well it just got out of the cold water, I don't think he or she will get into water again to attack us" Well, in times of fear try whatever makes you stronger right :D

So all good, we stayed there for about 15 mins or so, and then started kayaking towards the glacier. Had a mesmerizing experience of kayaking in rain, Glacier Calving, that thundering sound, the rainbow over hills, those small floating pieces of ice on water as you come up close to the glacier. And of course the wildlife like Whales, Otters, Puffins, Bears, Sea gulls, Starfish, Sea lions. It definitely is a much different experience than seeing glacier from the flight or hiking it or ice climbing it; and I must admit, by far the best experience of all elements of nature one can have.

Here is the video from Kayak Adventures Worldwide, the group we signed up with for the Kayaking day tour; pretty much sums up everything I was lucky enough to see and experience. I am yet to scan my Gopro videos, and given my schedule, I don't think I can get to them until Christmas holidays :) I have the video of the Bear closing in, will upload it when I get a chance.

https://youtu.be/HyhGfAYSJPc

On the way back, in the water taxi, my friend starts the conversation "We kept calling you, to stop you from going so close to that bear. You weren't listening."

I was like "Well, what happened? I dint find it so intimidating, and even if I did, I was here to experience every bit of it."

And then they shared their story. Couple of months back my friend had a nightmare; this was when we had not even planned this trip yet. He woke up middle of the night quite shaken by the nightmare. He said, he saw that he, his wife and some third person , he dint know who, were boating next to a hill. And they see this huge bear coming down the hill towards them. They start boating as fast as they could, but the bear was catching up on them pretty fast. And that's when he woke up.

I was gaping at them with my mouth kinda open in amazement. They were like "When we saw you kayaking so close to the shore, we just had the nightmare replay in our mind over and over again. That's why we were so scared to kayak closer, and then we could see that the third person was you, and you were going so close, we were really worried"

Hmmm. I din't know what to say. I don't know, if I knew of this before, would it have changed anything (considering how lost I get in nature at times). But nevertheless, for me it was a beautiful experience to see the bear so up close, open in the nature, doing its thing and me out there completely vulnerable.

So a nightmare, turned out to be an improvised beautiful experience for me. Might have been a real deal, if the bear really chased us down :D But hey, there are a lot of might haves and could haves in life right. What's strange is how close that dream came to reality; was a nightmare for him but of course a beautiful dream come true for me.

-Sarita
Dated - 26th August 2017

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