Sunday, June 27, 2010

June 26, 2010

Prince William Sound Cruise

Today we took a long (nine and a half hours) Glacier and Wildlife Cruise out of Valdez.  Similar to cruise we took from Seward but different.

01 our boat

Prince William Sound is protected by islands from the Gulf of Alaska so quite calm actually especially today.  Most of trip was almost like glass.

We went to two different glaciers and got as close as we could to both.  Getting to them involved navigating water filled with mini ice bergs.

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A number of these ice chunks had sea otters or sea lions hanging out on them.

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09 Meares Glacier panorama 11 Meares Glacier

12 Sue and Pete at Meares Glacier

Here we are holding some really old ice.

04 Sue and Iceberg 03 Pete and Iceberg

 

We saw several humpback whales including two who gave us quite a show for 15 – 20 minutes.

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Porpoise played in front of our boat several times.

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We saw one shark, briefly.

Sea birds were not as numerous as Seward trip but we did see a few Puffins and Eagles.

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I know it doesn’t look too impressive but that is an eagle in flight.

 

 

 

23 tufted puffin

 

Tufted Puffin

 

 

 

 

Lots of pretty country and points of interest including spot where Exxon Valdez ran aground and epicenter of 1964 earthquake.

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Tanker hit reef just beyond marker.

 

 

 

 

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Epicenter of 1964 earthquake was just beyond those mountains.

 

 

 

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Just hang’n’ in the harbor.

 

 

 

 

 

Long day but worthwhile.  We will head inland tomorrow.



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