Stan Stephens Glacier & Wildlife Cruise

We had a beautiful day for our seven-hour cruise in Prince William Sound – sunny and calm. It still got pretty chilly up next to the Columbia Glacier, though (as you can tell by all the coats we are wearing).

Our boat hadn’t even left the Port of Valdez, when we saw lots of cute Sea Otters. They look like a bunch of driftwood or something!

On the way to the Columbia Glacier, we sailed past an old gold mine. It was a large operation in the 1930’s, but the dock and most of the buildings were washed away following the 1964 earthquake.

There were many lovely waterfalls coming down from the smaller glaciers up in the mountains. This is a fjord, so the mountain slopes pretty much continue underwater. It is over 1,500 feet deep in most places!

The Columbia Glacier is massive, although it is actively retreating into the Chugach Mountains. It is the second largest tidewater glacier in the U.S., although most of it is below water. Massive amounts of ice are calving every day, we saw one ‘splash’, and there are icebergs floating miles away in addition to right in front of the glacier.

The blue ice is the prettiest. This is the densest ice, so only the blue part of the colour spectrum shows through.

Some ice has interesting ‘stripes’ caused by the gravel and dirt that is caught up in the ice.

There were lots of Stellar Sea Lions hanging around the ice-strewn water and on the ice chunks. Brrrrr!

We were able to get much closer to the glacier than usual since the terminal moraine which holds icebergs in a sort of bay in front of the glacier was fairly ice-free. We were able to sail over the moraine ridge (about 60 ft of water) and navigate carefully through the growlers, bergy bits and icebergs to get within half a mile of the glacier.

We spent quite a bit of time in this area right in front of the glacier then slowly and carefully sailed back out of the inner glacial bay. We got some great pictures of glacial ice.

The crew fished up a couple pieces of ice to put in lemonade – see how clear it is!

Before heading back to Valdez, the captain took us past Point Bull Head which is ‘the’ place to hang out if you’re a Stellar Sea Lion (reminded me of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii). There were hundreds of them up on the shore rocks and frolicking in the water. We got lots of pictures and I got a videoclip of a group horsing around right beside the boat.

There were some puffins in this area, too.

We also saw a couple of Dall Porpoises accompanying a fishing boat. They are hard to see, but believe me, they are there!

We also saw half a dozen humpback whales on the way home. We had to have lots of patience to wait for the whales to resurface after each time they dived. The crew didn’t mind waiting to make sure we got to see the whales and we got back to the dock about one hour later than expected.

The captain pointed out Bigh Reef, the location where the Exxon Valdez ran aground, and recapped that sad story. It was just after passing through the Narrows:

There are lots of commercial fishing vessels in the Valdez small boat harbour. The Coast Guard has a very visible presence, too, with both small and large ships. Note the machine gun on the small coast guard boat!

The dogs were fine, but happy to see us. We felt bad leaving them so long, but they’ve already forgiven and forgotten!