Cruising Prince William Sound - June 16, 2013

I've had one visitor so far this summer, and she sure did get to take advantage of some beautiful weather! We hadn't planned much in advance, but since the weather was so nice we decided to go on a day cruise so we could see some glaciers and hopefully some wildlife. We chose one from Whittier. That way we'd get to go through the tunnel to Whittier, which is an experience in itself.

As usual, I had a hard time reducing the photos to a manageable amount. So it's a lot of photos, but hopefully they're all worth it!

Views from the Portage side of the tunnel...

Waiting for our turn. The entrance to the tunnel is the A-frame "building".

We got to see a lot of glaciers (it wasn't the 26 Glacier Cruise, but we still saw more than a dozen!) along with some wildlife.

Watching where we're going...

A salmon boat is getting ready to set its net.

We spotted an eagle in the trees... not very close, but always fun to see them!

I got a bit distracted at one point because not only was there an eagle soaring, but a gull wasn't too happy about this eagle being around.

Jellyfish... It is harder than it looks to photograph these things!

Black Legged Kittiwake taking off

We went into one fjord and found a group (a "raft") of sea otters. Apparently they like to group together where the water is relatively shallow because it's a good area to feed. I've seen otters a few times before, but never this many in one place. It was pretty neat! I had to zoom in and get a couple at a time... but there is one photo of the "big picture".

The wide view... but this still isn't all of them!

They're so cute!

Another wide view of the sea otters... miniaturized by the mountains!

Our captain looking for whales and other wildlife.

Heading toward a tidewater glacier so we can watch for it to calve!

Getting closer to that glacier... but still quite a ways off.

Some icebergs... and who's that?

Well hello there, sea lion! This guy was very very patient with us as we passed by.


A crew member is fishing out some glacial ice for "special" drinks on our cruise.

As we got closer to the glacier, I started to look at some of the "details" (even though what fills the frame of these photos is not small!).

The best calving happened while we were trying to get a photo of ourselves in front of the glacier. Of course! But we did see a couple other smaller ones at least.

On the way back through Passage Canal toward Whittier, we went by some great waterfalls. 

And a rookery! Check out all those birds!

Combining the two... birds AND waterfalls!

Heading back to Whittier Harbor, with the Alaska flag blowing in the breeze.

It sure was a great day! 'Til next time...