Friday, July 9, 1999

We've rather been dreading this day in one way.... it signifies for us the end of our trip.  But, at the same time, we've really been looking forward to it because of how beautiful we anticipated the glaciers being.  The train ride was only a couple of hours.  In a car it's not far at all.  Trains go slow but scenery is good.  We rode all along the water with beautiful mountain scenes.  There is no road to Whittier however.  One must park their car in Portage and ride the shuttle train / ferry to get there.  It's a town of 200 permanent residents and I don't know how they get around in the winter.  Last winter they had 1,100 inches of snow.  The train quits running in September.... or at least the run we were on.  They have two major buildings there... One is where all the folks live and the other is long and thinner... It's designed for a train to pull up right in it so they can unload it in the winter!!

This first view here is of mudflats along the way heading out of Anchorage.  We've heard big stories of bore tides coming in and drowning folks that were stuck in the mud.  It kind of sucks you down into it the more you move around. The tides can be up to forty feet or such.  Sounds unreal to me.

This day turned out to be as dramatic as we thought it would and as pretty as we hoped it would.  We found a lucky penny yesterday and our wish was for good weather.  After flying over and landing on a glacier up high in the mountains I had a better idea of what this would be.  It's just just sheer size and massiveness that is so awesome.  The eons of time involved is just mind boggling.

Our tour was billed at a 26 Glacier Tour.  I lost count somewhere early on.  There are thousands of these things in Alaska and many are yet unnamed.  In this particular fiord the major glaciers were named by a family from New York.  They named all the ones on the left after women's colleges in the east and the ones on the right after men's colleges.  I wished they had been Eskimo names instead!  Seems corrupting to the locale.  

I carried this coat around for three weeks and today was the first day I needed it.  It was COLD!  I guess it was the wind actually.  It was nice when the boat stopped.  With the boat going 38 knots itself and it felt like you'd blow off the front if you stood out there.  The water up by the glaciers runs about 30 degrees!  

We were extremely lucky with the weather again.  It wasn't so nice on the water yesterday I heard.  The sun was out at the glaciers and it was beautiful.  If we looked behind where we would go back in it looked very gray and almost as if snowing from a distance.  It was gray but no snow.  We had stayed out, up top the majority of the day but going in they went full throttle with no stops anticipated so we went inside.  They had t.v. screens on both inside levels so they are always giving information and we missed some of that being outside but ..... no choice in my mind.   

They start out with all folks inside at a table on top or bottom deck.  Turns out those on the bottom had lunch first.  That was us.  They serve on the long section heading out.  Once done and cleaned up they get folks to swap.  It also swaps people around on the boat as well.  Our choices for lunch were chicken gordon bleu or halibut.

 

We made several stops along the way and got up as close to the glaciers as possible.  We "hung out"  there awhile to watch the calving. That's where pieces "are born" and drop off into the water.  There is thunder first which lets you know some movement is taking place but you never know where and have to be looking.  The huge pieces of ice fall in and create waves or splashes depending on size.  Then you heard the sound again as it echos on the other side.   We posed Stacey out here for a picture to prove she was here.  She doesn't much want to brave any elements no matter how pretty it is.  She chose to spend most of her time tucked inside.  She may not even be aware of what her choices allow her to miss.

The boat we were on, the Klondike Express,  was built in 1999 and had only been in service for four weeks.  It had two 16 cylinder Detroit Diesel engines running water jet pumps.  At 2,100 rpms it cruised at 38.7 knots!  With a small head breeze  the wind at the bow was over 50 mph.  There was no steering wheel, just a joy stick.  A camera system allowed the captain to pan and zoom in each engine room or view the scene off the bow.  It carried over 300 passengers and they handled the group  well.   There were no gauges, just electronic displays that indicated all the pressures, temperatures etc.   The boat was equipped with state of the art technology which was quite impressive.  Stacey and I noticed that the crew all had Motorola Talk About radios.  She went up to the captain and asked him what frequency they used (4.4).   We ended up taking to him on the radio quite a bit.  He was surprised someone had the same radios.   The crew liked the radios but recognized that the batteries don't last long enough. 

On the last run in we made two stops.  One was for a pod of otter.  We had seen them going out in Prince William Sound but usually only one to three at a time.  This was a group of about twenty.  They really are cute things.  They just lay back and float on their backs..... paddle with their bottom toes and wave their little arms around or eat on their bellies.  They'll roll ..... keep their eyes on us and when the boat gets too close they dive.   We had seen a dozen or so seals out on the ice near one of the glaciers.  They actually come up on the ice to bear their young where they can be protected.  Not too many critters want to swim out there and the Orcas can't get to them there.

There are seven family pods of Orcas that live in Prince William Sound but we didn't luck up on any today.  Humpbacks come up in there as well but usually chasing salmon and their aren't any runs at the moment.  These pods of Orcas have been researched for many years.  The Sound is beautiful and you see no signs on the surface of the oil spill.  The captain seemed to feel like much of what's been written around this 10th anniversary has been erroneous.  He was there and feels like it's been misconstrued.  Exxon spent about 2 billion in clean-up and he was on a citizens advisory committee that also was involved. 

This is "our" Mexican Restaurant out behind us and us enjoying our meal and Ms. Bishop time together.  We are perfecting that art of thirty minutes of "pleasant" conversation after a meal with Miss Stacey.