Advertisement
Published: July 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Prince William Sound in South Central Alaska has the largest concentration of tidewater glaciers in the world. Harvard and Columbia glaciers are two of the big glaciers in these waters. Most popular way of seeing these glaciers is to take a half day cruise from the towns of Whittier in the west or Valdez in the east. I wanted to spend more time in front of these glaciers so I decided to take a longer cruise. Cruise West runs a 3 and 4 days cruise in Prince William Sound waters. This Cruise West ship, Spirit of Columbia, has rooms for single travelers unlike most large cruise ships which have room rates based on 'double occupancy'. So I did not have the pay the price for being single!
After completing my road trip on July 10, I had returned my rental car in the night. The cruise was to start on July 11 and end on July 14. It was not until 2pm that the bus departed from Anchorage to the small town of Whittier. I had some time to kill before it was 2pm. I just roamed around Anchorage streets. The Cruise West bus left from Sheraton hotel at 2pm.
There were about 70 travelers. We reached Whittier around 4pm. Took a tour of this small town in the same bus. The tour guide was the only teacher in town. Yes, she was the only teacher in town! Whittier used to be a military base and it did look like an abandoned military base. The town has one big building where all the people live! The teacher told that they don't get sunlight for about 4 months during winter. This is because of short daylight hours during winter and location of the town which is surrounded by mountains on all sides. It also has a cloud cover most of the time. They do have vitamin D deficiency problems!
The cruise actually began at 6pm. There was a delay due to some generator problems. One thing I didn't know was that one of the Cruise West boats had run aground in Glacier Bay a few days before! Ignorance can be good sometimes.
We arrived at Blackstone bay where I got to see Blackstone glacier. Even around 12:00 am, there was enough light outside. It does not get dark in the night in Alaska during June and July and that
close up
Chenega glacier made for magnificent views of the mountains after the sun had gone down.
Dinner was server around 7pm. Everybody assembled in the dining room. The Cruise West's guest service representatives and crew were pretty good. Surprisingly, the meals were good. They also had some options for my vegetarian needs!
Next morning, we cruise along College Fjord. There are plenty of beautiful glaciers in this fjord. The sun was smiling on us and it made for magnificent views but less magnificent photographs. For good photos, you would need cloudy skies. It brings out the blue in the glaciers.
Harvard glacier is about 1.5 miles wide. The ship went as close as a quarter mile from the face of the glacier. This was as close as a small cruise ship could go. Larger cruise ships stay much farther. The boat stayed in front of the glacier for about an hour. It gets real cold in front of such a humungous piece of ice. I saw the glacier calve a few chunks of ice a few times. Every time it did that, it would cause a thunderous sound and a wave. The sound is like some canons going off at a
distance.
In the evening, we cruised to Columbia bay. The Columbia glacier calves huge chunks of ice at a very rapid rate. They are so big that our cruise boat was looking smaller. Some pieces were 3 times the size of our boat. There was a sea of these icebergs, big and small, for a length of 8 miles in front of Columbia glacier!! Our boat was in no position to navigate between those icebergs to reach near the face of the glacier. In fact no boat goes close to this glacier. I wonder how big the waves are, that are generated when one of those massive chunk of ice calves from this glacier. Anyways, being in front of these massive blue chunks of ice in the evening was awesome.
Next day, I did not see any big glacier till the evening. But we did spot a pod of Killer Whales and many Humpbacks. We saw Sea Lions, a Black Bear on the coast, Seals, Otters and other marine wildlife. In fact, the Prince William Sound waters got deprived of this wildlife 20 years ago due to the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill. The whole Prince William Sound
was covered with thick oil and it killed many resident species of marine mammals and other wildlife. Marine life has slowly returned back to normal now.
Evening was spent in front of the beautiful Chenega glacier. We spent about an hour in front of the glacier and saw it calve a few times. More than a 100 Seals were residing on the small icebergs floating in front of the glacier. It seemed to me that these Seals were accustomed to the glacier calving. They do not get disturbed by the big sound and wave that is generated when the glacier calves!
And they disappear into the water as soon as a boat approaches towards them! Bold in front of the glacier and shy in front of boats!
People on the cruise were friendly. Some Aussies, Kiwis, English and other Europeans. Many were enjoying the golden years of their life.
The ship returned to the Whittier port on July 14 morning about 8am. I was back in Anchorage at about 12pm. My Alaska adventure had come to an end. Highlights included flightseeing Denali and landing on a glacier, flightseeing the Wrangell Mountains, Brown Bear viewing in Brooks Falls
in Katmai and seeing the glaciers of Prince William Sound in Cruise West's small ship. I also ran into a couple of Black bears while hiking the Harding Icefield trail near Seward. One ran away due to the noise I was making. The other bear was right on the trail and refused to budge. In fact, it started walking towards me! The bear had this 'in your face' attitude. Why should I be the one to get out of your way? The bear would have thought. Luckily, there was a guy in front of me with a big hammer. He had been working on the trail. He took a few steps towards the bear and showed him the hammer. I think the hammer did the job!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.181s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 68; dbt: 0.0773s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb