Whales, Sushi, and Super Spies

This past weekend, I finally got to go on my long sea kayaking expedition. We got up early, packed up the kayaks, and hit the road. We put in at Amalga Harbor and paddled out to Gull Island for lunch. On the way there, we saw a few whale spouts and a bunch of seals. After our break was over, we headed over to our future campsite on Benjamin Island. Despite being exhausted already, our instructor took us around the entire island before we were allowed to set up camp. At the time, I was super mad about this, but we ended up seeing some more whales (up close this time), so it was totally worth it. We also had some sea lions follow us for a bit and it was really exciting to watch them play less than 20 feet away from me. After unloading and pulling the kayaks up onto shore, my friends and I set up our hammocks and then started reheating our delicious premade burritos (I convinced them to help me cook them the night before so we wouldn’t have to wait as long while we were in the wilderness).

The coolest part of the trip, by far, was being able to hear the whales breathing at night from my hammock. It was slightly freezing and windy that night so sleep wasn’t the best, but Lo, Pieter, and I had to leave early in the morning anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Regardless of our instructor telling us there was no way we could be ready in less than two hours, we were packed up and suited up in less than 30 minutes. After waiting for him to get ready, we paddled back to Eagle Beach at 7 am and it was absolutely gorgeous weather. The sun was rising and the water was so calm; it was very relaxing. Once we got back home, we helped Pieter set up for his big Dutch holiday: Leidsch Ontzet. He had a bunch of people over to play games and listen to Dutch music, which was super fun! We also attempted to look for the Aurora that night, but it was unfortunately too cloudy.

Later in the week, my friend and I got some sushi and went to see a scary movie in the theaters. The food was soooooo so good (albeit overpriced, but you can’t really win with that in Alaska). I usually don’t scare easily with movies, but for some reason, this one had me really jumpy. I definitely recommend seeing Smile if you’re into those kinds of movies. The next day, we all went downtown to wrap up Christmas shopping and to go thrifting. Thrifting was AMAZING– we got so many cool things, including a pepper grinder! Unfortunately, downtown was mostly closed since there were no cruise ships in port that day, so we really just ended up getting lunch. We also spent a lot of time planning out an epic road trip over Christmas break. My roommate, Emilie, is going to NYC with her family and invited us to go with her, so my other friend, Lo, and I are trying to get a game plan together to go up and visit her before they have to go back to Europe (so sad).

On another note, my friend’s birthday is tonight and we’re throwing her a spy-themed party, which of course is costume-mandatory. I got some pretty cool black ~spy clothes~ while thrifting and am going to spend the rest of today making some cardboard spy gear (and maybe wrapping up some homework). I’ll post pictures from tonight and the rest of this week on the main page later today.