Yesterday we boarded the Lu Lu Belle in Valdez and headed out into Prince William Sound for a Glacier Wildlife Cruise. During the nearly eight hours we saw: Sea Otters, Sea Lions, two species of whales, Dall's Porpoise, various birds, and then we cruised to within a quarter mile of the Columbia Glacier. Pretty spectacular stuff, although it did get down to 37 degrees when we were next to the glacier face. Oh, almost forgot - we also saw a TV star.
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| Sea Otters |
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| Sea Lions |
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| Approaching the Columbia Glacier |
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| Approaching the "face" |
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| Little closer |
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| Closest - 1400 feet or so, which is VERY close - the wall of ice is over 300 feet tall - the water is over 1000 feet deep here |
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| A little burg |
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| On the way back in |
Here is a short video - it will give you an idea of what we saw during the hour we "parked" 1400 feet from the glacier's face (the captain said that was as close as he could get "just in case something big comes loose". We saw ten or so of these "events" - several much bigger than what we managed to captured on video.
Lastly, for any Discovery Channel watchers who are fans of the Deadliest Catch.
NOTE: If you look at the MapShare page and select the "topo" map you will get a pretty good idea of where we went on our Glacier Cruise.
