The Stan Stephens Wildlife & Glacier Cruise Valdez

We hired someone who the campground reccommended to take care of the doggies, boarded this boat and away we went

We can't get any closer than 10 miles from the Columbia Glacier, it is too dangerous with the huge icebergs, the glacier has plugged up the opening with rocks and enough debrie to keep the large ice bergs inside the fjord, so that they are not a navigation hazard for other ships

The Columbia Glacier is over 1,000 feet in the water, and another 300 showing out of the water, the glacier itself goes many miles up the mountain and attaches to an Ice Field on top of the mountain rangeThere is 50 square miles of icebergs, that the Columbia Glacier has made, in front of it




The Columbia Glacier is the fastest glacier in the world, it moves 50 feet a day, there are cameras recording it's movement and every 90 days scientist come to see it , when it finishes advancing it will have carved out the largest fjord anywhere around

I didn't have any gloves on, my fingers hurt, I had to go in and warm them up, my fingers hurt for hours must have got the start of frost bite, it is amazing how cold those ice bergs can make the area

Remember this is 10 miles away from where I am, and we leave Columbia Glacier to go and see Meares Glacier

Purse Seine fishing, with another boat, they lay the netting out and then the other boat swoops it up and hands it to them, then they pull it up like a purse, full of fish

Did you know sea otters don't have any fat to keep them warm, that's why they are constantly twirling aound to get air in to their fur to keep them warm, I don't know what they are doing with their hands

It's a beautiful day, it had rained the day before,

how fortunate we were

Instead of using another boat to move the net around, this purse seiner uses a long pole

These are fish haulers, they go out and pick up the fish from the boats that are fishing and take them to the cannery, the fishing boats can keep fishing

Nice of them to put these big loungers out here for us, need a wet bar though.....some sushi would be nice

We start seeing little icebergs even before we turn the corner into it's fjord

The face of the glacier is a mile across

Meares Glacier goes around the corner, up the mountain for miles and attaches to an Ice Field on top of the mountain range also

The glacier chews up whatever is in it's path, when it flows out with the water it nurishes the sea, one of the reasons there is so much sea life around here

The boat can get within a quarter of a mile to this glacier, because the icebergs are not as plentiful or large

You could hear the ice cracking, and then you look across the face looking for the "calving", if you're fortunate you catch one

The Meares Glacier is 300 feet above the water and another 300 feet under the water

The exchange rate on the US dollar is making a difference in who you see, many more people from out of the country

It looks too cold to be there, even for harbor seals

So we leave Meares Glacier, hoping to see

a major calving as we leave, we keep looking back

Our boat was built in 2005,

could accomodate 140, we had about 30,

took 9 and a half hours,

and they fed you dinner, lunch and a snack

This iceberg has floated a long way from it's glacier

We do not know how we got this little smiley face on our picture,

strange, isn't it?

This is all we saw of the dolphins, they were busy eating, the silver salmon are in the bay waiting to spawn so they are at a buffet,

no time to play

Two different types of puffins, The Tufted Puffin and the Horned Billed Puffin, out in the wild, don't know why but I always thought they were in the Artic Ocean

Sea Lion Haul Out,

where male Sea Lions go after they're through romancingTypical brag, brag, brag, and then

bray, bray, bray

This is the newest Alaskan Ferry, but they might have to give it back, it seems they can't afford it, fastest ferry I've ever seen, wasn't sure I could get a picture of it, it was that fast

Imagine if you took the San Juan Islands, put pointy black mountains on all the islands, and hung glaciers off them, that's exactly what this area looks like, it's simply beautiful

This is where the largest earthquake in North America

happened in 1964,

it was under water,

the moraines (the toes of the glaciers)

slipped and caused massive tidal waves,

and that is what killed everyone who was in the Valdez Harbor,

and others even as far away as Lousianna in a boat,

true story

I was trying out different settings on the camera,

I might turn out to be a sailboat photographer,

but it's hard waiting for the sunrises and sunsets in Alaska

Close to here

the Exxon Valdez ran into Bligh Reef,

named after the same Captain Bligh

that Mutiny on Bounty was about,

notice what number the buoy is......

stranger than fiction!

With all those glaciers, you've gotta have waterfalls

Lot's of kayakers out of Valdez, many beaches to kayak to, explore, picnic, or camp (I sound like the visitor center) oh, and fish too

This is what remains of Anderson Gold Mines,

everyone was washed away in the tidalwave after the earthquake,

they say there is still lots of gold

in the water in front of this mine shaft

Many people have tunneled hoping to find the elusive gold

They say a company is interested in reviving the gold mine, but they have to figure how to get the gold out of the water

This tunnel goes back the furthest

Look's like I'm in Hawaii, doesn't it? Once we got away from those ice cubes it was really very nice

Back to the harbor, it's a small harbor, with all those fishing boats we saw out there fishing, you have to wonder how they all will fit in this harbor

Here's the "fish hauler" dropping someone's fish off at the cannery, then he'll go out and get someone else's fish

I never thought glaciers, fishing, ferries,

and everything that we saw on our Wildlife, Glacier Cruise,

would be so interesting,

I was looking for whales,

we saw none,

but my mouth didn't close for the whole cruise