Seward: Resurrection Bay Kayak to Tonsina Point with Pickup

4.80

(128 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We were already halfway into our paddle before I realized how quiet it was out there — just the low dip of our paddles in Resurrection Bay and the odd gull calling overhead. Our guide, Alex, kept spotting things I’d have missed: sea stars clinging to rocks, some kind of tiny jelly drifting by (I forgot the name immediately). The air smelled briny but clean, almost sharp. I kept glancing back at Seward — it looked so small from the water, which felt weirdly comforting.

I’ll admit, I was nervous about kayaking that far (it’s about 1.5 miles each way), but Alex set an easy pace and told stories about the land — something about glaciology that went over my head, but I liked hearing it anyway. When we reached Tonsina Point, we pulled up on this little beach where the forest comes right down to the stones. There was hot tea and cocoa waiting in thermoses (I picked cider — still think about that smell), plus snacks I ate too fast because paddling makes you hungry. We watched a bald eagle circle above for a while. Nobody really talked much then; it was just good silence.

The weather did its usual Alaskan thing — sun one minute, drizzle the next — but honestly, it didn’t matter after a while. My hands felt cold at first but warmed up as we went. On the way back, someone tried to say “Resurrection Bay” in Spanish (Li laughed when I tried it in Mandarin — probably butchered it), and we all drifted a little closer together. The whole thing took maybe three hours? Hard to tell; time sort of stretches out on the water like that.