January in July (July 7th)

“Here we go again”, I thought as I heard the pitter-patter of rain drops on the camper as I awoke this morning. Sure enough, it was cold and rainy most of the day with temps in 50s and 40s but wow, wow, wow! Just when you don't think this place can wow you any more, it does. With some trepidation, after the seasickness on the previous voyage, we boarded our boat for the trip to the Columbia and Mears glaciers.

But this was a larger boat and the water was smoother than before so it turned out to be a very enjoyable ride. 

Once again, the clouds obscured most of the mountains on the outgoing voyage as we passed fleets of fishing boats.

First we saw a bunch of sea lions lounging on the shore.

Then we began to see the icebergs escaping from Columbia glacier.

The Columbia glacier is a tidewater glacier, which means it goes all the way to the sea. Because of the clouds and all the icebergs we really could not see much of the glacier itself.

We did see some seals and sea otters on the ice.

Next we headed to Glacier Island to look for birds and whales. We saw some puffins and other birds then we saw several humpback whales.

After that we headed for Mears Glacier. It took us quite a while to pick our way through the ice but what a sight! The glacier towers 200 feet above the waterline where it meets the sea and probably extends 200 feet below the sea.

We were able to get within ¼ mile of the glacier. Occasionally, we would hear a sound like a rifle shot as some of the ice fell into the ocean. Just as we were about ready to leave a very large chunk of ice crumbled into the sea with a loud roar.

On the return trip we could see the sun shining on the mountains towards Valdez and the rain finally stopped.

Yoda found a friend on the boat and I think a little shipboard romance resulted.

We passed one of the boats seen on the show “Deadliest Catch”, the Northwestern. In the summer they use it as a tender, a boat that collects the fish from the small fishing boats and takes them to the cannery.

When we got back to Valdez, Nancy and I headed out to a place where we heard we might see some grizzlies. On the opposite side of the bay from Valdez is a power plant on a small creek that runs into the bay. At the mouth of the creek were thousands of salmon churning up the water.

 A barrier has been placed at the mouth of the creek to keep the salmon from going upstream and getting into the power plant. A number of sea lions were having a feast on the salmon and flocks of birds were following the sea lions for leftovers.

In the trees around the creek were at least a half dozen bald eagles watching the action and waiting for the opportunity to do a little fishing themselves. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get good photos.

About the time we had decided that the bears were a no show, a mother grizzly and 3 babies emerged from the woods and headed for the lake.

 Seemingly completely oblivious to the 50 or more people standing within 20 yards of them, the bears worked their way along the shoreline till they got to the salmon and began to gorge themselves.

Obviously, bears can't read.

Yoda liked the bears, too.