Day 45
Friday, July 22
Prince William Sound

 

Today was a spectacular day!!! I truly believe that when God mad Prince William Sound He created perfection. This has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The soaring, snow=covered, jagged mountains, the sparkling, smooth water, the rocky shores of the 100's of small islands, the icebergs, the glaciers, the waterfalls, the wildlife were amazing.

 

 

  Put all of these together and you have Prince William Sound - 225,000 square miles of magnificent beauty. The sound is almost a complete circle with no point being more than 120 miles from any other point.

We left the Port of Valdez

 

on the Valdez Spirit, an 80 ft. catamaran that comfortably seated 130 people. Our captain, Amanda Bauer, gave a detailed description of the Sound and all that we were to see during our tour.

  The first thing we saw was the Alaskan Pipeline Terminal that is directly across the harbor from the small boat harbor. 18 large storage tanks hold the 650,000 barrels of oil that arrive each day from Prudhoe Bay each day. About 52 tankers each month take the oil to the lower 48. Tankers can be loaded in about 16 hours and since the Exxon Valdez fiasco must be escorted into and out of Prince William Sound by tugboats. Captain Bauer talked about the Exxon Valdez disaster and the extreme measures that have been taken to prevent such an accident in the future.

Shortly after leaving the Port of Valdez we encountered our first sea life - a "raft" of sea otters.   About a dozen of these cute little critters were lazily floating on their backs as we slowly circled them. Sea otters were nearly hunted to extinction during the late 1800's. A worldwide treaty has made hunting them illegal and their numbers have rebounded significantly. They can dive over 100 ft. to get clams, starfish, salmon, and other sea life which they bring back to the surface to eat. They lie on their backs and hold their food on their belly to eat. Females keep their babies on their back or belly for up to three years.

As we entered the Valdez Arm. a long fjord leading into the Sound, we saw our first pod of Orcas or Killer Whales.  
  Captain Bauer told us that this pod were known as "transient" Orcas because they roam throughout the sound and eat small sea mammals - seals, otters, etc. These three Orcas rose to the surface many times as we followed them into the Sound. One member of the crew told us that he had only seen this pod 2 or 3 times in his 7 years on this boat, so I guess we were fortunate to see them. The crew was able to identify the three Orcas by name by identification marks and notches on their flukes.

Shortly after seeing the Orcas we saw a pod of Dall Porpoises.  

These fast moving porpoises came swimming toward our boat and swam swiftly in and out in front of the bow as we moved across the water. Dall Porpoises look like tiny Killer Whales and they swim very fast. It was very hard to get a picture of them.

Soon after the Dall Porpoises we ran into another pod of Orcas. This pod was "resident" Orcas meaning that they eat only fish, and are more social and tended to stay close to the boat as we traveled. One large male whose fluke was over 6' tall passed by the boat many times. At one time he turned on his side and "waved" at us repeatedly before disappearing for good.   There were several Orcas in this pod but we really only saw one of them up close.

After leaving the Orcas we sailed west on the north side of Glacier Island and through the ice field of icebergs from Columbia Glacier. Columbia is a large glacier that is in rapid retreat because it is surrounded on three sides by seawater.

  This causes it it "calve" or shed ice at a very rapid rate. the water was covered for miles with large chunks of ice. Captain Bauer told us that this ice would all be gone in the next 24 hours, but it would be replaced by new ice from the glacier.

Shortly after this be came across a large buoy inhabited by a large mother Harbor Seal and her pup.

 

The mother slept and soaked up the sun as we passed by, and her pup kept an inquisitive eye on us. Captain Bauer told us that unlike sea otters, Harbor Seals like to find a place out of the water to rest and sun.

Next we entered the Unakwik Inlet which is a long fjord that leads to the Meares Glacier. This long inlet was the epicenter of the 1964 earthquake that struck on Good Friday. Long stretches of the beach were lifted 20-30 ft. during the earthquake. As we neared the Meares Glacier the water was once again littered with icebergs, many of which had seabirds and sea lions on them.  
  We finally reached the Meares Glacier which is 13 miles long, 3 miles wide and 600 ft. high. About half of its height is below the water level. I noticed that as we neared the glacier the color of the water dramatically changed from blue to green. I asked the captain about this and was told that a huge river of fresh water is coming out below the glacier. This water is full of glacial silt or flour that makes it appear to be green. The ocean water by contrast is blue and the line I saw was where the fresh water met the ocean or saltwater. She said that some days it is much more apparent, as it was today.

We stayed about 1/4 mile from the Meares Glacier for about 30 minutes hoping to see in calve. We kept our distance in the event that a large section should fall since it would cause a massive wave to strike the boat if we were too close.

 

  We heard several lour cracking noises which often signal the beginning of a calving event. However we only saw small sections of ices fall into the water.

After leaving the Unakwik Inlet we sailed east to the south side of Glacier Island and watched a large number of seabirds in the water. Among those we saw were Puffins, Cormorants, Murres, Marbled Murrelets and Bald Eagles. Later on the southern shore of Glacier Island we saw a large number of Stellar Sea Lions.

 
This large group consists of males who are too small to break into the rookery and attract a harem of females. Instead they stay in this "bachelor" camp and sun, swim and play in the ocean. They also fight each other in preparation for trying to eventually beat out the larger males in the rookery. Many of them swam out toward our boat to show off.

Humpback whales were spotted far ahead of our boat but we were unable to catch up with them. They submerged and we didn't see them again.
As we sailed back toward Valdez we were served clam chowder as an afternoon snack.

We arrived back in Valdez at 8:00 - a full hour later than planned. The extra time watching two pods of Orcas made us late, but no one complained. The scenery and sea life that we saw today made this an interesting, exciting, and awesome day.

Once back on dry land we went with Robert, Bet, Roni, Bruce, Cindy and Ron to eat and then we went to the far side of the harbor to see the salmon Hatchery and hopefully some bears. The Salmon Factory produces millions of pink and silver salmon each year.
 

These fish are programmed to return to this same area each year to spawn and then die. Thousands of fish were trying their best to get onto the fish ladder and into the holding pools where they will eventually be slaughtered for their eggs and sperm. Like I said in an earlier post, a salmon's life sucks!!

We did see one giant bear - a 600 lb. male grizzly bear who came out of the woods to get a fish.
 
 
  He then crossed back over the road and sat for over 45 minutes eating berries and watching us watch him. We hope to go back tomorrow night to see more bears.


As we were leaving we saw at least 20 Bald Eagles sitting where the tide had gone out eating fish that were trapped in the pools of water.

 


 
 

Tomorrow is a free day and we plan to go on a Historical Tour of Valdez and then visit some local museums. I'll let you know about those things tomorrow. Till then - Happy Trails!!


The pictures below were just some beautiful scenery we saw as we sailed through the Sound. While these pictures do show some beauty, they cannot begin to show how truly amazing and magnificent the scenery really was. You just have to see it to really appreciate how wonderful it is.