North to Alaska III

Sunset at sea - taken by Michelle

Hello again. When I last left my faithful readers (all two of you) we were departing beautiful downtown Skagway AK for our next stop - Icy Strait Point: a small Native Indian fishing village and site of a former cannery. The basic entertainment choices here were: a.) a hike in the woods b.) a trip on a whale-watching boat or c.) a form of insanity called a zip line in which you are driven up a mountain for 45 minutes in a bus, wait an hour in line and then spend 90 seconds screaming as you're strapped in a harness and slide down a wire cable for 1500 feet back to where you started. Needless to say, we went whale watching.

The old cannery at Icy Point Strait

The whale watching boat was a large twin hulled power boat that had three decks and was fairly comfortable and stable. The tour was accompanied by a young woman naturalist who told us about whales and what to look for, what we were seeing etc. We did see whales. Since summer is the time the Humpback whales migrate to Alaskan waters to feed (They're not dumb - they spend winter in Hawai'i) there were plenty of sightings. In fact, we got fairly lucky as a mother Humpback and her calf surfaced near our boat and put on quite a show of rolling over, splashing their tail flukes etc. All in all it was probably the best shore excursion we had taken to that point. It was also the best whale watching we have seen since the time we were in the Gulf of Maine outside of Bar Harbor and saw a rare form of cooperative action among Humpbacks called "bubble netting". It's a way the whales work together to herd herring into a small area for easier pickings. When Michelle mentioned that we had once seen this to the naturalist on this current trip she was boggled and pretty much said that behavior was so rare as to be a kind of holy grail for whale watchers.

A humpback whale breaches - picture taken by Michelle.

After the whale watching, we walked along the small boardwalk they had on the town waterfront, watched some of the lunatics come down the zip line, and ate some great fried halibut (halibut, along with salmon, is kind of the Alaskan national fish) in a small restaurant overlooking the water. It occurs to me that I may not be doing Icy Strait justice. It is a very beautiful spot scenically and worth the stop.

That afternoon, we set sail for the Hubbard glacier. We arrived there the next morning. The Hubbard glacier is located far up a bay. It is a huge river of ice, some six miles wide which makes its way many miles down a mountain valley and ends at the salt water bay. Since glaciers are always moving forward, chunks of it are always breaking off and falling into the bay, forming small "icebergs". Apparently in Greenland this happens with even bigger glaciers which form not so small icebergs and hence what happened to Titanic. However, our bergs were not so big or dangerous (fortunately). Of course our ship's captain, a Norwegian chap who fancied himself a comedian, started coming on the ship's PA system about 7:00 AM with reports on our progress toward the glacial face and a few lame Titanic remarks thrown in for good measure. Fortunately, he was a far better seaman than comedian and he was able to safely navigate our 90,000 ton ship to within 1200 feet of the glacier. In fact, we were told that this is supposedly closer than any other cruise ship gets. Since I used to struggle to get a 1 ton sailboat within two feet of a dock, I was duly impressed by this feat.

Our closest approach to the Hubbard glacier.

Needless to say, the view of the glacier was spectacular. We were close enough to hear the roar of the ice as it began to break off from the face, and to see the splash and puff of powdery crystals as the break actually happened. It was like being in the middle of a National Geographic special. Finally, though, the ship turned around and headed back down the bay and we were on our way to Seward AK, our final port.

Next: Weird shipboard entertainment and Seward to Anchorage to Fairbanks.

North to Alaska

This seems to be sort of turning into a travel blog, but Michelle and I just got back from a two-week jaunt to the 49th State. Thought I'd post some thoughts on it here.

Our first stop was Vancouver B.C. where we were to board the Royal Caribbean Lines' "Radiance of the Seas" for the north bound journey to Seward AK via several stops on the Alaska Panhandle (the Southeastern part of AK that stretches alongside Canada toward Seattle). We got there the day before we were to board and stayed overnight at a hotel near the Vancouver airport in order to preclude any horror shows perpetrated by late flights, lost luggage etc. As it turns out, everything went smoothly with flights and luggage. Also, due to the vagaries of flight scheduling and time change we arrived in Vancouver about 10:30 AM. At that point we made a decision not to spend our one day in the city sitting on our butts in the hotel but instead to take a Vancouver city tour and see the place. It was a good decision. We booked a four-hour city highlights tour for the afternoon and off we went.

Vancouver seen from the top of the Harbour Centre Tower

Vancouver is a really lovely city with what seems to be an excellent quality of life and it is surrounded by considerable natural beauty. It's located on a peninsula among various bays and river deltas. As a result it has excellent deep water port facilities along with many recreational areas such as beaches and small boat marinas. Our tour was on a bus with a number of stops throughout the city. The tour guide was very knowledgeable about the city, but he was also a bit of a character. For one thing, he ended every statement with "eh". Now I know this is supposedly a common practice in Canada, but he did it so much it was almost a caricature - he reminded me of the Mackenzie brothers, the two beer-drinking mock Canadians on the old Second City TV show. He also claimed to be a drummer in a rock band and an expert on the city's various micro-brews. He may have been that last thing-I tried a pint of his recommended beer and it was quite good. Anyhoo, the tour took us to Stanley Park, a green oasis of a peninsula adjacent to downtown, and various sections of the city including Chinatown, "Gastown" (a kind of hip restaurant and shopping district) and a stop to take the elevator to the top of the Harbour Centre Tower which is their version of the Space Needle but not as tall (but with a great view of the city). My favorite stop on the tour was called Granville Island. It is a small, artificial island in a creek near downtown and is sort of the Vancouver Greenwich Village. Lots of galleries, shops, theaters, and restaurants crowded into a walkable space and surrounded by water and boats. We ate dinner there in a Tapas bar called the Sandbar - it was quite good. To sum up: it was an enjoyable first day of vacation and the next morning we were up bright and early and off to the "Radiance of the Seas".

"Radiance of the Seas"

We showed up early for the boarding - they said 1:00 PM, but we got there at around 11:00 in the morning and pretty much walked right on the ship. We had a nice cabin with a balcony and kind of a sitting area; also, the bed was very comfortable. As for the public areas of the ship they were very tastefully done - lots of wood and artwork. The ship was fairly new so it had a huge central atrium that ran from deck 4 to deck 11 with glass-enclosed elevators. It had the other usual cruise ship stuff: a theater for evening shows, a casino (where I actually won at Blackjack unlike Las Vegas) and lots of bars including a nice piano bar with a fairly talented chap who played and sang requests. Of course since it was a cruise they pretty much fed you continuously in various places around the ship. Unfortunately, the food was for the most part not outstanding. It was decent but I've personally had much better on other cruise lines. But we went to see Alaska, so stuffing our faces was secondary. Enough description of the ship, if you've been on one modern cruise ship, you've been on them all.

After a day at sea we docked at our first port: Ketchikan Alaska. We booked two shore excursions there: a crab boat trip and "feast" and "The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show". The crab boat trip was on a sort of enclosed patio boat where they took you up an inlet to some crab pots which they hauled out for some marine biology type measurements on the Dungeness crabs they caught. They then let the crabs go. It was moderately interesting. The best part was the "feast". They took us back to a lodge along the inlet and fed us mass quantities of steamed Alaskan Dungeness crab. These are not the king crab caught on the "Deadliest Catch" TV documentary. They are actually caught like our east coast blue crabs in salt water inlets and bays. They resemble our crabs a little but they seem to be meatier and the meat is sweeter. Eating them is similar to eating the blues - basically a slob's convention of cracking claws and digging out meat with bits flying all over the place - great fun! The feast included one beverage of choice. Fortunately one of the choices included a pint of Alaska Amber beer. Mmm, steamed crabs and good local brew. Doesn't get much better than that.

Me, stuffing my face with Dungeness crab

After the feast they bussed us back to the dock and it was a two-block walk to the lumberjack show. It was fun watching them saw huge logs and climb tall poles and try to log roll one another into a pond. It was staged in the form of a good natured competition between two teams with lots of clowning and shouting. After that, it was back on the ship and off to Juneau. More on that tomorrow.

The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show