Day 86 - Valdez

A Long Cruise For A Big Glacier

Today was our big trip on the Lu-Lu Belle. It didn't leave early, but was still advertised to last about eight hours and its berth was directly across the street from our campsites. This meant we could have a relatively relaxed start this morning. We stated queuing up for our 11am departure around 10:30 and there were already around a dozen people ahead of us.

The Lu-Lu Belle is a 75 foot boat originally built in 1977 as a sportfisherman, but has been repurposed to do glacier tours. It is well appointed for a tour boat, with teak and mahogany paneling and trim inside as well as oriental carpets throughout. Being larger than the Viewfinder, our tour boat in Seward, it took more passengers. It seemed like there were anout 50 on board, compared to the twenty we had on Viewfinder.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough interior seating for all. This wasn't a problem on the way out, but made things a bit crowded on the way back when we were all tired. On the way out Harry and I spent a fair amount of time in the pilot house as Harry chatted with Captain Fred. We were usually the only ones there. On the way back it was totally filled.

The trip took us out to the Columbia Glacier, the second largest tidewater glacier in Alaska (and in North America). The trip out (and the trip back) was accompanied by much talking by Captain Fred. Much of the talk was unrelated to what was going on around us.

On the way out of the harbor we passed large rafts of sea otters just lazing about, then it was off to an island where we were purportedly going to visit puffin caves. There were supposed to be puffins, but only one was found and it was in the water not in a cave. The "caves" were large hollows in the cliff sides that came down to the water. It seemed the real purpose of going there was to demonstrate boat handling by putting the bow of the Lu-Lu Belle right into the cave entrances. I suspect that the captain and crew knew that there no longer any puffins as it was pretty late in their breeding season. If they were still there, they would have hundreds of puffins.

Our next stop was to view a pod of orca (killer whales). It was a family group of at least six including a very small orca calf. From our last cruise, we knew that it was a resident group. These tend to stay on the same area year around. We spent quite a bit of time following them.

After the orca, a Humpback Whale was spotted and much time was spent tracking it down. It turned out to be a pair of whales and the boat trailed them for a much longer time than we thought necessary. It also got very close to both the humpbacks and the orca, much closer than would be allowed in Mass Bay. At home, I expect that the other whale watcher boats and the Coast guard would have been all over the captain.

After several hours we finally headed towards the Columbia Glacier and it was a long way threading thought ice floes to the vicinity of the glacier. We got to about a quarter mile from the face and spent quite a while viewing it.  A large chunk calved off the face while we there and it was pretty impressive. While we saw that large calving and the face was much bigger than the Northwestern Glacier, there didn't seem to be as much noise and activity at the Columbia. 

It took even longer to thread our way through the floating ice going back out to the open water of the sound. We passed several ice floes inhabited by dozing harbor seals, some of whom roused themselves enough to give us a look. From there it was a longer ride back to Valdez.

The ride back was not a pleasant as the ride out. On the way out, most of the passengers were out on the decks, mostly on the bow, and the weather, although cold in the breeze, was pleasant. It was late in the day on the way back and there were no stops to look at wildlife, so most everyone crowded inside. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough seating in the cabins for all the passengers.

Ellen and I were virtually pushed out of our seats along the edge of the pilot house by some of the other, more pushy passengers, who mostly seemed to be Europeans. We ended up going down to the galley where the crew let us sit in their seats. 

The tip back was punctuated by more Capt. Fred talk, mostly about the costs of current efforts that are in place in order to respond to an oil spill. We couldn't tell if he was against the actions being taken or not since it sometimes seemed to be a rant about the expense and how it must affect the cost of fuel. For someone who has been doing this glacier tour for forty years and was here through the Exxon Valdez disaster that nearly ruined Prince William Sound (and his business, most likely), it was a rather strange disquisition.

We finally got back to Valdez harbor after about nine hours of our seven hour wildlife and glacier tour. There wasn't much wildlife except the otters and a few whales. Captain Fred was also vehemently anti-Steller's Sea Lion. They ate too many salmon in his opinion. There were certainly no stops for birds. While the Columbia Glacier was very impressive and worth seeing and it did take quite a bit of skill to get as close as we did, the trip was not as good as our cruise in Seward.

By the time we got back to Speedy it was too latte to make dinner, so we picked up a takeout pizza and collapsed.