Alaska Uncovered Podcast
Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming. Jennie brings you accurate, helpful and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and Life in Alaska. Guests include Alaska travel experts and Alaska business owners, guides and interesting Alaskans. Jennie is a born and raised Seattleite, a former Alaskan and spends several weeks in Alaska each year. She’s an experienced guide and the Founder of the Alaska and Washington travel website, Top Left Adventures. Jennie is joined by occasional co-host, Jay Flaming, her husband for more than 20 years. Jennie and Jay met working in tourism in Skagway, Alaska and also lived in Juneau and Fairbanks together. Jay lived in Fairbanks for 8 years before meeting Jennie in Skagway and grew up in Yellowstone National Park.
Alaska Uncovered Podcast
Kayaking and more in Seward from a local’s perspective with Sunny Cove Kayaking
Stephanie Millane, long time year round Seward resident and owner of Sunny Cove Kayaking, joins Jennie to share about all the fun things to do in Seward on the water and on land.
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Jennie, welcome to the
Jennie Flaming:Alaska uncovered podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co host and full time husband, Jay and I bring you accurate, helpful and entertaining information about Alaska, travel and life in Alaska, before we start the episode, we would like to thank our Patreon members for making this podcast possible. You can join them at the link in the show notes. We are so grateful for your support of independent podcasts. Enjoy the show our sponsor for the month of February is the Unalaska Visitors Bureau. We'll tell you more about them in a little bit, but for now, thank you Unalaska for your support of the podcast. Are you planning to go to Seward on your trip to Alaska? If you are, you are not alone. Seward is one of the most popular destinations for both visitors and locals. So people from all over Alaska love going to Seward. So that is what we're going to talk about today. My guest today is Stephanie Millane. Stephanie has lived in Seward for 18 years and has been the owner of sunny Cove kayaking in Seward for the last five years, when she is not running her kayaking company, which is, let's be honest, mostly during the winter, summer is pretty busy. You can find her doing wild ice skating, cross country skiing and volunteering with many of the different organizations that make Seward a wonderful place to live. Stephanie, welcome back to Alaska, uncovered. Thanks for being here. Yeah,
Stephanie:of course, I'm glad to be back. I'm super excited. To chat with you again. Yeah,
Jennie Flaming:I know. So for those of you listening, if you're new to the podcast, Stephanie was on back in November when we did a really fun conversation with several Alaska women business owners, and so you could go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already. And also, a couple of Stephanie's guides are also podcast hosts, and we did an episode with them last summer that was also about Seward with Danny and Andrew. So that was super fun. And Stephanie, you helped me find them in the first place, or you told me about their podcast, like a couple years ago. So yeah, it's it's so fun. Thank you for supporting podcasting. Yeah, of
Stephanie:course, of course. It's a super fun way to communicate with people outside of Alaska, which is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Yeah,
Jennie Flaming:for sure. So I know you talked about this a little bit in November Stephanie, but to start us off, can you just review for everyone how you got to Alaska in the first place?
Stephanie:Yeah, it was by accident. I was working in the seasonal tourism industry. And you know, back then, my MO was to find eight to 10 really interesting sounding jobs and to apply for them. And I decided to, just on a whim, apply for a job in Alaska I had been living in, you know, Montana and Colorado, and like some of the western states, Utah, and got a job in Alaska and went up to the mama King Lee Princess lodge for part of a summer, fell in love with Alaska and just kept coming back up.
Jennie Flaming:Love it. That is so fun. So I know that you were a guide for the company you currently own for many years. I think it'd be fun to hear again, just a little bit about how that how did you get into kayak guiding, and then how did you end up owning the company? Yeah,
Stephanie:of course. So I also accidentally became a kayak guide. Before kayak guiding, I had been working as a raft guide and a bike guide in southeast Alaska. Decided I wanted a change of scenery and applied for a few different jobs, one of them being with Sunny Cove kayaking and ended up speaking with the owner at the time, he knew I was a rookie green kayaking guide. I had a little bit of management experience in the tourism world, and he brought me on as the day trips coordinator. So it was a job that was split with another person who did multi day trips, and that was a mixture of guiding and. It. I had to go through guide training, just like everybody else, because I just really didn't know what I was doing in a kayak at the time. And, you know, did that and ended up loving it. Came back for my second year and was promoted to operations manager. I already knew that I was in love with Seward. I fell in love with Seward right away in the first couple of weeks of being here. And at some point, I mentioned to the owner that if he ever decided to retire or sell the business, that I would be interested in talking to him about it. And you know, of course, I was a guide and, you know, an operations manager on a guiding company with a guide salary, and so I didn't have any means to do anything like that, but I, but I put it out in the universe, and it circled back around. And in 2018 he and I started talking about how to make it happen. And in 2019 I bought the company that's 2020
Jennie Flaming:right, just in time for the pandemic. Oh, yeah,
Stephanie:yeah. But, like, I always say, we're still here, so it's okay. Well, it all worked out. Yeah,
Jennie Flaming:you made it through that. Um, well, okay, before we come back to kayaking, let's talk about Seward a little bit, because you mentioned instantly falling in love with Seward that happens for many people and all the different ways you're involved in the community, I know there's many of them. So what are some of the things that you would say makes Seward really special and that you would want visitors to make sure to get to experience when they come to town.
Stephanie:I mean, this the super obvious. It's just, it's gorgeous here. It's beautiful. There's 6000 foot mountains coming out of the ocean, and it, you know, they look like they're 10,000 12,000 feet high, but they're actually kind of low, but steep mountain faces turquoise water, wildlife and just as beautiful little community nestled between the mountains, and it's, it's, it's beautiful here in the wildlife in the summertime in particular is insane. There's so much wildlife here, yeah, you know. And then if you dive a little deeper in the summertime, it's a little harder to see the community of sewer because there's a lot of tourism. It's still there, but in the wintertime, Seward is a very normal, small, remote town, and the community here is super accepting, friendly. They're very community minded and invested, and it's really just a really nice place to feel like you're at home.
Jennie Flaming:Love it. I agree with that. I've been to Seward lots and lots, but have never lived there, and I agree it's a super welcoming place for visitors, for sure. Yeah, so let's, let's dive into a couple of those things you brought up a little more. So first of all, wildlife. I think most people who've looked into Seward or have looked at a map and see where Seward is are probably aware of whales. Um, oh, yeah, yeah, but I know whales are not the only wildlife and Seward so, um, well, let's start with whales, though, because that's familiar to people. What's What are some good ways for visitors to get to see whales when they're in town? It
Stephanie:depends on the time of year, but it's almost always going to be by getting on the water boat and heading out into resurrection bay or into Kenai Fjords National Park. You know, we have killer whales or orcas here year round. They have a big territory, so we don't see them all the time, but there are winter boat tours that do spot orcas once in a while, and then around March we'll start seeing gray whales migrating north along the outer coast. And there are tour companies that go out and look for gray whales. They're only here for a short time, passing through, and about the same time, the humpback whales start showing up, and they this is a feeding ground for them, and so we have quite a big population of humpback whales that are here through, you know, mid May is when they really, really start showing up, and they're really pretty easy to find. I can't tell you, they're always there, but they're pretty easy to find through late July and then August, it starts tapering off a little bit, but we start seeing more orc activity again, because there's a lot of salmon in the water, yep. And then there's a handful of other whales you could possibly see, but it's super rare. You know, like Minke whales, they're there, they're there, but they tend to be out farther off the coast and a little tougher to find.
Jennie Flaming:Yeah, and minke oils are solitary too, aren't they? Yes, like, yeah, so that probably doesn't help. No, it's trying to find them.
Stephanie:Yeah, I've seen one, and the captain and I were both like, was that? Did we? Was it? Was that? Yeah, is that a Minky whale once? You know? So it was like, like, seeing a ghost for just a split second. You're like, did that happen? Yeah,
Jennie Flaming:I saw Minke whale once, not. It wasn't in Alaska. It was in Washington State, near, near one of the San Juan Islands. And I was on a sailboat, and we were like, Wait, exactly what you said. Were like, Wait, did that? Did that happen? Yep, it was really cool. But I Yeah, they're really elusive, for sure, yeah, but so cool.
Stephanie:You know what? We've been seeing a little more often lately, and about saying it's going to happen again this year, but less when last summer was a good summer for fin whales. And they're huge, and they they often travel in groups of four to six whales. So seeing them is is pretty special, too. Yeah,
Jennie Flaming:that's cool. I've never seen a fin whale ever.
Stephanie:They're awesome. They're as exciting as humpback whales. You know, they just surface and then dives, but they are so long that they surface
Jennie Flaming:Just like Well, that's whales so big. Whales are so so cool. While we're talking about whales, for everyone listening, who's heard discussion of whales before? You're probably tired of hearing me say this, but I feel like the coolest thing about whale watching is hearing them breathe like if you're close enough that you can hear that, it's just so cool.
Stephanie:It is. It is very cool. And if you're very close, it's also very smelly. Yes.
Jennie Flaming:Terrible breath. Oh, fish breath. So bad. Okay, cool. So what about some of the other wildlife? Stephanie, because you're right, Seward is such a great wildlife spot. Let's talk about some of the other other things that people might see while visiting besides whales. Yeah,
Stephanie:yeah. I'm gonna start with the thing that usually comes up last, which is birds. This is a great place for birding, and there are some birds here that you can't find anywhere else. And so we get burgers up here who are looking for that life list bird, yeah. And so, you know, we have tons of eagles. Everybody's always surprised to see eagles, and we're not. If you live here, you're not, you're just like, there's Eagles everywhere. But yes, you know, there's a lot of pelagic birds, there's puffins, there's mirrors, there's mirror, let's there's a bunch of different kinds of cormorants, including red face cormorants, which are hard to find, but those, that's one of the birds that people are looking for. And so you can always count on birds. There are always birds here. And yeah, and you know, I've been leading towards the sea birds, but I can't even name all the birds that live here or that migrate through here. It's so many, but that's once you start becoming a tune to the birds. You realize that there's such a variety here. It's really it's really interesting and really crazy. There's, it's so it's so much fun to watch birds here. And I was not a birder before I came here, you know, but, but the animals that people tend to focus on here are marine animals, or marine mammals, and we have a lot in the summertime. They're here for the same reason as the humpback whales or the other whales that are passing through food. We have good food sources here, and so wildlife comes here to feed in the summertime. And we have porpoises. We have two different kinds that we see dolls and harbor porpoises. We have harbor seals, everybody's favorite sea otters, Steller sea lions, but, yeah, everybody loves the otters. They look cute, but they're not nice. They are not nice.
Jennie Flaming:Everyone, I know whose work does a guide is like, they are jerks, but they're super cute. Yeah?
Stephanie:Well, you know, they people think sea otter, fluffy, cute, adorable, but I see sea otter and I think badger, Wolverine, you know, they're the same family. Yeah, they're, they're aggressive animals. I'm not saying they're aggressive towards kayakers. That makes it sound like I've been attacked by sea otters. I have not.
Jennie Flaming:You're still bigger than them as a human. So that's
Stephanie:still bigger, yeah, but yeah. And stellar sea lions are here and and then if you get on shore, you know, near shore, it's, it's not uncommon to see mountain goats along the shoreline. We have a pretty good population of black bears. They're a little easier to see in the spring, when the foliage isn't super thick yet, but they get harder to see over time, and then brown bears were not well known for brown bears, but we do have a population of them north of town, but, but we're more a marine mammal kind of place. It's really not uncommon to see marine mammals. Yes, pretty much any time of year here. Yep,
Jennie Flaming:cool, awesome. Okay, yes, um, so before we take a break and then get into kayaking more, I would love to hear a little more about winter. That's also something that Danny and Andrew and I talked about that, which I thought was really fun. So Can people visit Seward in the winter, like there aren't the tours and things that are going on in the summer. But what is it like if someone visits? Is that an option? Are hotels open, for example, and restaurants and that kind of thing. And then why would you want to do that? Would be another, yeah.
Stephanie:You know, there's more to do in Seward now than there was 10 years ago in the winter time, it's a winter tourism is slowly growing in Seward. Will never be like we are in the summer. That's That's not possible. But, you know, there are hotels open. It's often less expensive to visit Seward in the winter time, definitely, as far as hotels go and there are restaurants open, one of the things I will say is that October to December is not the best time to visit Seward in the winter. That's often when restaurants close to take breaks. It's not, you know, a lot of our restaurants that stay open year round here are locally owned, and so, yep, they need a break, and they'll close up first, you know, four or five weeks in November, yep, but January, February, March, when it's starting to get a little bit lighter, you can, you can come and there are tours, there's the can I name drop some businesses do
Jennie Flaming:it? Do it all right? So I guess I should have said, when I said no tours, I meant like no on the water or tours.
Stephanie:Oh, no, there are, are, there are, yeah, you guys don't do winter tours. Do you? Do you? No, we don't. We don't, kind of gains a little tough because, you know, in the summertime we can get away with some different weather considerations than we would be able to in the winter, yeah, so we would have to cancel a lot more often in the wintertime.
Jennie Flaming:Yeah, I know major marine does wildlife tours in March
Stephanie:and Kenai Fjords tours too. They start out there like their gray whale watching nice spring resurrection Bay tours, but Seward ocean excursions runs year round, and they run boats, yeah, and they will take you. They won't leave the bay in the winter time, but they'll go look for wildlife. They'll show you amazing scenery. The water here is when it's calm. Here it's glass, and we don't see that in the summertime because there's so much boat traffic, right? But we have these beautiful, crystal clear, totally calm days, and those guys will also often take you to a beach. Let's go do a little remote beach walking, which is really pretty amazing. And then, yeah, and then there's another company, Kenai back country adventures. And they run snow machine tours at the exit glacier. They do some back country skiing and some other things. And then, of course, we have the Alaska Sea Life Center, which stays open year round, and so you can see some of the marine wildlife there that you wouldn't be it wouldn't be easy to see in the winter time otherwise, but you can get up close and personal with seals and sea lions and some of those marine birds and some creatures that live under the water that you can't see otherwise. And then, you know, in Seward's pretty good about throwing events a winter time. And then in January, we'll have the polar bear jump, which is, is people raising money for cancer, and they are jumping off the docks into the bay, and often the water is warmer than
Jennie Flaming:there, yes, yes, not that it's warm, but warmer than No, no,
Stephanie:no, not, not by any means, but it's, it's a, yeah, it's a fun event. And then the Chamber of Commerce sponsors or facilitates winter weekends. They do one of those every month, and those usually center around some kind of a holidays, like St Patrick's Day or, you know, like Valentine's Day or that kind of thing, where they, you know, put together some information about different businesses and things that they're doing. The one thing people get fooled by in the wintertime often is they think they can go out to exit glacier easily. And it's super common to see people come into town with their rental car with the expectation they're going to be able to drive out to exit glacier, but that road, yeah, closed, yeah. And so you have to snow machine out there or ski out there. And adventure 60 North also does snow. Okay, tours out there. So, oh, that's, yeah, there's actually quite a few options. And then the best restaurants stay open year round, the locally owned ones. And so you could get a really good meal in Seward, in the in the winter time. I almost said, off season, and Mandy Garcia would just come over and smack me if I said Yes,
Jennie Flaming:I know it's so funny. Whenever you get ready to say that you're like, Nope, that's sweet of saying that, yeah, that is Yeah. That's really cool. I'm glad you mentioned that about exit glacier, because in general, I found that visitors even like early summer, spring, early summer visitors also sometimes are either surprised that something is still closed or or like when exit glacier is open, like the Harding ice field trail has like lots of snow until, like July, and that's something that sometimes throws people there, like, but it's June, like, how can there be snow? And you're like, Well, yeah,
Stephanie:yeah, I see that all the time, or hear that all the time, where people are like, I'm planning to come to south central Alaska in June, and I'd like to hike. What are some good trails? And everybody here is thinking, nope, that one's under snow. Nope, that one's under snow. Yes, No, that one's under snow. Yeah, you know. And there are some open but they have to be low elevation,
Jennie Flaming:yes, for sure, yep. When do they typically open the road? When does the Park Service typically open the road out to exit glacier? It's
Stephanie:they usually open it. Well, they always open it. May they're always trying to get it open before Memorial Day weekend. Yep, I know that if it's a lower snow year and the road clears itself, it they may open it earlier, but it's usually early May.
Jennie Flaming:Yeah, okay, awesome, wonderful. Well, we're gonna take a short break, and when we come back, we're going to talk more about kayaking. Our sponsor for the month of February is the Unalaska Visitors Bureau, and Alaska is located in the Aleutian Islands. And the Aleutian Islands pepper the southwest region of Alaska, halfway out on the Aleutian chain, a dramatic emerald green landscape greets visitors to one of Alaska's most remote communities. It feels a world away, even though it's just a two hour flight from Anchorage. Unalaska has a rich history of the Unganan people that have lived in this region for over 10,000 years. An Alaska is also located 50 miles from the great circle route, which in turn makes the international port of Dutch Harbor a bustling working community. The island is known for their indigenous culture, an abundance of seafood, World War Two history, outdoor activities, including hiking, fishing, camping, kayaking, beachcombing, beautiful wildflowers and marine life to view as you walk or drive by the surrounding ocean. If you are looking for something really unique to add to your Alaska itinerary, make sure that you check out Unalaska and Unalaska, thank you for being our February sponsor. We are back with Stephanie Millane from sunny Cove kayaking in Seward, and we have been talking all about Seward, what makes it awesome, fun things to do, but now we are going to talk about kayaking, specifically so Stephanie to start off with. Can you tell us a little bit about how the tours that you operate work, and what I mean by that is, like, how long are they? Where are you going, like, a long distance to kayak, or are you kayaking like, right there? And I know you have different options. So can you share just a little bit about what those are?
Stephanie:Yeah, of course. So we have three different locations that we operate from, and they're all based out of Seward. And I'll say first that they're, you know, pretty much all appropriate for first time kayakers. All of our trips start with a safety briefing and some instruction, and they are all fully guided tours. So you're always with somebody who has been very well trained.
Jennie Flaming:But we do when you're on the water, yeah,
Stephanie:yeah, yeah. And when, to be honest, when people ask me about kayaking here on their own, I usually really discourage it. It's a challenging weather place, it's, it's, there's often good kayaking, but you need to know what you're doing right going out on your. When you have no experience, can be, can be, honestly, quite dangerous, yeah. And so, you know, we always encourage guided tours, but we, with our three locations, we have a couple of tours that head out to low point and we pick you up in town with our van and and do a little tour for through town and out to low point, which is about a 15 minute drive with our tour. And then from there, we have a short version of a tour where you're just out on the water for about two and a half hours, two to two and a half hours. It's a super relaxed pace. You're exploring the shoreline, looking for wildlife, and it's just kind of getting out and getting a feel for what it what it's like out on resurrection Bay. And that's a good one for people who are, you know, not super, who are a little tight on time, which is a whole different subject we could talk about, and and then, or people that are just want to try it and are sure they're ready to invest a lot of time into it. Yeah. And then we have two other tours that are a blend of kayaking and hiking. One is more of a chill hiking experience, you know, relatively flat not too long. Might go find some secret waterfalls, stop somewhere and eat some eat a picnic lunch. And then the other tours are big day. It's a, it's a, it's a lot of hiking and a lot of kayaking, and it's a challenging trip, but it's a really good one for the that really adventurous spirit who wants to get out and do as much as they can in a day. And then we also have a partnership with the Kenai Fjords tours, who will take guests out to Fox Island. There's two ways to get to Fox Island. One is to stay at the Kenai Fjords Wilderness Lodge, which I really recommend. It's a super good experience. It's a remote Wilderness Lodge, but you get to kayak, you get fed really well, yeah, it's really beautiful out there, especially in the evenings when nobody's coming out. And so if you stay at the Wilderness Lodge, you get to kayak with us. And then if you just want to do a day trip, you would get dropped off at Fox island with Kenai Fjords tours, meet your guides, spend a few hours kayaking along the shore, shoreline of the island, before getting picked up by Kenai Fjords tours, again on another boat and doing a bay tour with lunch. That's a fun trip, a nice blend of things to do. Yeah, man, yeah. Super nice. And then the last one is the most popular one. And if, if what I'm about to say inspires you to look into it. Book. Now, that's the short version. Is book now, yes, because it is our most popular tour, and it is a private charter out into Kenai Fjords National Park for glacier kayaking and so, oh, yeah, it's a you should come. I
Jennie Flaming:know I want to do it so bad, I would love to go kayaking with you. Stephanie, it's,
Stephanie:it's literally a trip I'll do to force myself to have a day off. Yeah, I'll just go out with the trip and go and be near a tidewater glacier, and then do this really cool cruise looking for wildlife on this little camera and and that one includes lunch too, but that's a that's a really special day. You get a lot out of it, but it does sell out early,
Jennie Flaming:I bet, especially since it's private, you know, and it sounds like it's all day, so you can only do yeah, those every day,
Stephanie:12 seats a day. That's it,
Jennie Flaming:yeah, oh, that's so cool. Glacier kayaking is pretty rare. It's amazing. Yeah, it's so cool. So, um, Okay, a couple other questions that are things. I'm sure you get these questions all the time, because I get these questions all the time, and I am not a kayak guide, and I don't own a kayak company. Okay, so the first one is Stephanie. What if it rains?
Stephanie:It probably will. Yes, it probably will rain. Is it gonna ruin my day if it's raining? No. So you know if you're planning to visit Southeast Alaska or south central Alaska. What you need to know is, you're planning to visit a temperate rainforest, and it is going to rain. If it doesn't, that's amazing, but chances are you're going to run into rain somewhere, if you're near the coastline. And so it's it's worthwhile to invest in at least a good rain jacket. And, you know, if you don't want to spend a lot of money on ring pants, go for the less expensive, because you might not use those again out, you know, back home. But a good jacket is worthwhile. Um, one of the things I tell people that people don't often think about, they think about buying a. Everything, packing it and bringing it with them. But if you're flying into Anchorage, there are thrift stores, and you can pick up that stuff at thrift stores, and then you can take it back when you're done. There's a and then there's a couple of sporting goods based thrift stores as well, where you can pick up things for less expensive and then turn it around or another fun idea is to drop it off with one of the one of the homeless shelters, yeah, because they're always looking for stuff like that. So you know, if you, if you don't want to go big, don't, but bring it with you, or make sure you have it. It's not uncommon for outfitters to provide some rain gear, but it might not be the greatest, yeah, and you're probably going to use it outside of just the one tour. Yeah, it is. It's probably going
Jennie Flaming:to rain. Yeah, yes. You know, I tell people all the time, whether you know, when I'm working, you know, as a tour director, and I'm with my people, and they ask me, you know, sometimes it's up to, like, a two week tour, and almost every day, someone will ask me, like, what the weather is going to be like. And I will guys by, like, day nine, they're like, Oh yeah, you're gonna tell us you don't know. And I'm like, yes, you're right. I am. And it's funny, because I tell them, and I tell, you know, everybody like you, and I have to deal with that too, right? Like, when you're going to work, you're like, Well, I don't know what the maybe it's not raining now, but it probably will be later. Like this is part of daily life in coastal Alaska. Is being like, well, the sun might suddenly come out, and I might be boiling. So I also need to be ready for that, you know, yeah, so I think and, and I can just say and confirm that, like, right, yes, you want to have a rain jacket, and especially for kayaking, you probably want to have some kind of rain pants, but, like it's not gonna ruin your day if it's raining, like it's not gonna change the wildlife. Sure, maybe you won't see the top of every mountain, but it doesn't interfere with like looking at Tidewater glaciers or wildlife, or beachcombing, or like any of those really checking out a cool forest. Like none of those things are impacted by rain at all
Stephanie:well, and we, if we didn't have the rain the way we do, nothing would look like this. Would be a totally different place. We wouldn't have these active tide water glaciers because there's not enough precipitation to create them. We wouldn't have these huge ferns and giant trees and crush green, lush undergrowth, you know, it wouldn't, it just wouldn't be the same. So appreciate the rain. It's part of, it's a big part of why this place is so amazing. Yep,
Jennie Flaming:absolutely okay. The last question I have about kayaking Stephanie is for folks who are like, Oh, I really want to try this. Like, I've never been kayaking before. It sounds like such a cool way to, like, get into places that you can't get to in other ways. I mean, it's such a fun way to explore. So this is sounding really appealing to someone, but they're a little nervous because, you know, maybe their mobility isn't as good as it used to be, or they don't know how to swim, or they're just kind of nervous about doing this for the first time. What? What advice do you have for people who like, want to do it but are a little hesitant? What would what would you tell them? Sure?
Stephanie:So the first thing I always remind people of is that they are always with a trained guide, and that, you know, for us personally and these, I can't claim these stats are the same for everybody else, but we take out a few 1000 people a year, and cap sizes are the thing people think is going to happen. And we only have two or three cap sizes a year out of 1000s of people, and they are almost always because somebody has done something we've asked them to not do. Tandem kayaks are super stable. We put you in a PFD, a personal flotation device, so you don't have to know how to swim. The spray skirts we use are recreational. You're not going to get trapped in the kayak if it capsizes and so, you know, but when we do have cap sizes, because I know that's the number one concern, yeah, people think they're going to be trapped, and that they're, you know, not going to be able to get out. But that's just not true. You pop right out. You pop right to the surface. Your Guide paddles over. They help you get back in your kayak. You go to shore, you put on some really, you know, fashionable thrift store, yes, that we've brought along with, oh yeah. And then most of the time, people just have a good laugh about it. They're like, Well, that happened, you know. And now. I'm
Jennie Flaming:wearing these little fitting Yeah, from the 90s,
Stephanie:exactly, exactly, but more often than not, you know, it's people figure out pretty quickly that kayaking is funny, even if they're nervous. I one of my favorite things when I was guiding was watching somebody be very nervous on shore, and then just seeing that epiphany just a few minutes in, where they're like, oh my gosh, this is fun. This is so fun. This is like, they didn't even understand what they were about to get into. And it's a really, really personal way to explore the coastline of Alaska. It's quiet, yeah, it's you're at eye level with the water. You can see into the water in a lot of places, and you're, you know, near shore, and there's eagles and, you know, maybe a sea otter swims by, and it's just, it's really magical. Yeah, don't be nervous. It's going to be fun. Yeah. And then if somebody's dragging you along and you're not sure you want to go,
Jennie Flaming:Yes, I totally agree with that. Okay, Stephanie, a couple wrap up questions. You know that I love to ask everyone who comes on the podcast. So the first one is, you mentioned that there are some amazing local restaurants that are open all year. What would you say are some places that visitors, whatever time of year they're coming, should definitely make sure to eat at while they're in Seward,
Stephanie:sure. So that's you've asked me this question before, and I still don't have a great answer. I know it changes. It changes. So in the winter time
Jennie Flaming:we're asking a different day, so maybe you'll get a answer.
Stephanie:I'll go. I'll go winter time, specifically in the winter, one of my all time favorite places to go. There's two, to be honest. But one is reopening this weekend is the cookery. The Cookery is good year round. Anytime in the summer, you need to make reservations, yes, but in the winter, they do brunch, and they do it for the locals, and they don't do it in the summer, and it's so good, but it's a day Ender.
Jennie Flaming:Yes, really did talk about this before. Yes,
Stephanie:you have to have a mission to do something immediately after, or just plan to go take a nap. One of the other Yeah, if you give yourself any latitude to think about it, you're going to take a nap. You're
Jennie Flaming:like kind of committing to a solid day off,
Stephanie:but a very content nap.
Jennie Flaming:Yes, yes. And then
Stephanie:one of my other favorite places that I've been visiting quite a bit is Primrose provisions, which is a small place in the old train depot. It's right next to zunis, which is also really good. But Primrose does these little charcuterie plates and these little like handmade sandwiches with like, good melty cheese on it, and it's faces out the seating, faces out of out the window looking over the bay. And she also collects and resells antiques, and she always has great music playing it, and it's just a super mellow place to hang out. I have had far too much cheese in the last week because of her. I know, but there's a there's a lot of good places to eat , specifically in the summer, there's a lot of good places, like higher than, higher ratio than most communities for good food, yeah, especially for a community the size of Seward especially.
Jennie Flaming:yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Stephanie, last but not least. What is one thing that you wish visitors knew? And I know I asked you this before, but maybe you'll have a different answer a few months later. What is one thing that you wish visitors knew before they took their trip to Alaska,
Stephanie:I was going to give you my last answer, but I'll give you a different one. I wish people knew that whatever they're planning is too tight of a schedule, and that they should give themselves more time. Alaska is huge, and this is a great place for slow travel. You're not going to get everything done that you wanted to do if you're trying to pack it all into one trip, no matter how hard you try, unless you're planning to stay here for, you know, six to eight weeks, and then you're still not going to get it all done. I live here. I haven't gotten it all done, right? But if you can take the time to instead of saying, Okay, I want to hit Seward Homer acreage, Denali, tell kitna Valdez, and then fly out like that's so much that that is so much, if you can take the time to say, I'm going to visit. South central Alaska only for seven days. And I'm going to pick two places to stay, you know, which is most likely going to be like Seward, and then Kenai or Homer. And I'm just going to take time to explore. I'm going to book the things that seem like I want to do the most, yeah, like the things that are my bucket list things, and then I'm going to leave the rest of the time open to explore and see what naturally happens. Yeah, you are going to have a much better experience. So just take time like and and then plan another trip to come back up and spend time in Talkeetna and Denali.
Jennie Flaming:That's great advice. Stephanie, perfect ending note. All right, well, Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing about kayaking, sharing about seaward. Thank you for being here.
Stephanie:Yeah, of course, I always enjoy chatting with you, and same I'm sure we will chat again soon. All right,
Jennie Flaming:hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Stephanie. I wanted to tell you that we have a discount for Sunny Cove kayaking. So if you follow that link in the show notes to book, you will save 5% on your sunny Cove kayaking trip. So don't miss out on that. And once again, thanks to the Unalaska Visitors Bureau for sponsoring the month of February. You.
