God's place of Wonder

What a glorious day. We expected rain, and we got the most unusual of Valdez days, sun, all day long! I apologize for the length of today's photo album. I could not stop snapping, and then later I could not hit the delete button. Get ready for a ton of ice.

Here's the animal list from Prince William Sound. It was a glorious day for the wildlife too. Naturally, our photos will not do them justice, but we try.

Pigeon Guillemot
Tufted puffin
Stellar Sea lions, beaches full of them
Humpback whales, and I even saw lots of tails
Sea otters, floating in rafts
Dalls Porpoise, running along next to us a 35 mph
harbor seals, pulled out on the glacier ice
Eagles, lots of them, including one in its two ton nest
And as always, more birds than I could count

In addition to wildlife,the cruise highlighted glaciers. There were two major glaciers on our 9 1/2 hour Stan Stephens cruise. (If you are ever in Valdez, this is a must.) First, Columbia Glacier. It began retreating in 1984 leaving behind a moraine on which its calved ice gets caught. The result is a giant field of icebergs, large and small, which float out for miles into the bay. You can barely see the glacier from the boat, but its debris is awesome. The boat hangs by the glacier for at least 30 minutes, quiet and still, so you can listen to the silence and the sounds of the ice popping and cracking in the water.

We made way for Meares Glacier, up the Unakwick Inlet. We passed a 2000 pound eagle's nest as we wended our way up the inlet, and a raven chose that moment to harass the nest. The giant winged eagle leaped and swooped to defend its young and gave us a gasp of surprise. Next, we encountered rafts of sea otters, hanging out, sleeping on their backs, rolling over, hooking up with buddies, very social animals. Sometimes we would pass a mom with her baby on her belly. Too precious for words. Carl caught quite a few photos of the cuties. The otter has the thickest fur of any sea mammal; it was almost hunted to extinction by early Russian trappers.

Then we rounded a corner and saw Meares. Overwhelming. Its face is about 200 feet tall; it is one mile wide and extends about 13 miles into the valley. The glacier is advancing, taking trees with it as it scours the sides of the inlet. It has advanced about 200 yards the last year. With the advancement comes the groans and cracks and booms as the ice heaves against itself and calves. We watched several calves create big waves. It felt like we watched the glacier in quiet for about an hour. Time stood still in this place of wonder. As we left, I felt myself crying. A fellow traveler was teary too. We looked at each other with complete understanding that we had been somewhere holy.

The glacier is so awesome that the seals that make their homes on its ice calves were hardly noticeable. But as we pulled away, an eagle soared across the width of the glacier, taking his time, spiraling and diving. It was indeed a glorious salute to the 4th of July.

We made our way out of the Inlet to the open sea, where humpback whales treated us to views of their tails as they dove. I have such admiration for wildlife photographers since starting on this trip. Try as we might, we can never seem to catch a whale doing much of anything. But the time you see him, it is over! I have given up trying and just watch and enjoy. I gave the camera to Carl, and he caught a few humps.

The whales continued to tease us all the way to Glacier Island, where I lost interest in whales and was captured by my second love, Stellar Sea lions. I love the noise they make as they hang out on the beach. One beach was filled with juveniles jockeying for positions of importance. Another was filled with mamas and babies and their bull, guarding his harem. Beach after beach of sea lions. Stellar! (groan)

Birds competed for our attention as we passed Glacier Island. The puffins do a running takeoff on the water which is fun to watch and impossible to photograph. Blurred wings. I didn't think to switch to Sports mode till they were airborn. Not being a birder, my attention is focused on the mammals, but this is a sea bird paradise.

We made our way into the Valdez Arm, pausing to reflect on the Exxon Valdez tragedy as we passed Bligh Island. Our cruise captains said we did not visit any areas of the Sound which had been affected by the spill. The spill had gone more south and east, and we had taken a westerly route in our trip. In the protected coves, there is still evidence of the spill, where the wave action of the sea has not removed the oil. This will take years to solve.

Our captains allowed all passengers access to the bridge all day long. We were able to ask questions in addition to the continuing narration they provided. Their description of the event made it seem like we were there, right on the bridge, the night it happened. Human error. A tanker put on auto pilot by its captain as it left the shipping lanes with coast guard permission to avoid sea ice. A captain who then went below deck, leaving the watch with the third mate who had been 16 hours on duty. A third mate who did not know the ship was on auto pilot, so that his lane change back to the outbound lanes never happened. By the time the error was realized as the watch reported signal lights that made no sense, it was too late to stop. The ship ran aground and ruptured 8 of its 11 tanks.

The Pipeline now has in place cleanup equipment and crews, requires two tugs to be tethered to the tankers all the way into the gulf of Alaska, and a pilot on board much farther than at the time of the spill. Our captains said they felt with certainty that another spill would be contained much quicker. A further regulation requiring double hulls on all tankers is now in full effect.

As we entered the narrows, we encountered the commercial fishermen in full swing, two hours remaining in their 12 hour open fishing that fish and game had declared for the day. It was interesting watching the captains navigate through all the seines stretched across the narrows. Pink salmon, also called humpy was the catch of the day. The fishermen were using purse nets, an efficient method that results in jellyfish being the only unwanted catch in their nets. After they bring in their catch, they can either put it in their holds or call over a ship which vacuums the catch directly from the net. The ship weighs the fish as they pass into its hold and gives the ship a credit slip. At the end of the day, the fish end up at Peter Pan seafood back in the harbor, where they are once again vacuumed into the plant. Most of them are still alive. Bad day for the fish, great day for the consumers like us.

There was a tug in the narrows awaiting the arrival of an empty tanker. Later in the day, we saw the tanker docked and loading at the terminal.


We loved the workers on our boat. Genevieve was a 17 year old that we fell in love with. She's a senior, she swims, she plans to go to college to be a music teacher. Her instruments are piano and clarinet. She talked to all the guests as the day went on, but we felt like she specially adopted us, and we wanted to adopt her. She is a native of Valdez. Her grandmother's house was in Old Valdez before the 1964 earthquake destroyed the town. New Valez is built on bedrock so that hopefully lives will not be lost as they were then. We also loved Debbie, a native of Cordova, who sparkled all day long. She says on Good Friday 1964 she was pregnant with her 19 year old son. When her three sons come home, they all return to Cordova to take some amazing hikes. All the workers seemed to be taking in the scene for the first time, in love with a place that can never leave your heart, and would not slow in their quest to make sure we saw what they loved.

Scenery. Drop dead scenery. I am going to my thesaurus after I finish this for more words for amazing. Mountains reaching the sound. More layers of mountains behind them. Visible snow covered peaks on this sunny day. I think this day will stand out as one of the most memorable of our trip.

I had a cup of tea in the afternoon as we cruised in the stillness of Prince William Sound. The tea bag had this quote: "In wildness is the preservation of the world." Henry David Thoreau.

Nuff said.