Woke today to sunshine and a forecast of decent weather. It was a surprise. It took a while for us to think about it but we realized it would be a great day to go on the Lu Lu Belle cruise. We threw our stuff together and got tickets. The cruise takes 42 people and we got tickets 41 and 42.
Our Captain, Captain Fred, has been doing the cruise for 40 years and is into showing his guests a great trip. He exceeded expectations. I’ll not a complete list everything we saw, some included sea otters, porpoises, humpback whales, tufted puffins, horned puffins, sea lions, seals, and eagles. We left around 10:30 am and returned to port after 8:30 pm. About the trip, all I can say is WOW. Captain Fred took us to the Columbia Glacier which has retreated 13 miles up the bay since he started doing the cruises 40 years ago. He slowly worked his way through the floating ice for miles to get within one quarter mile of the glacier. Once there he let us know we’d be there for about an hour watching calving. We witnessed several glacier calving. Once we made our way up the bay the temperature dropped to the mid-thirties. After 45 minutes almost everybody was inside and I found myself alone on the front deck. A small bit of water started trickling out of near the base of the glacier. The captain over the loud speaker told me to keep watching where the water was dripping and then a huge calving took place. It was amazing. It got Captain Fred excited with glee then he needed to get the boat further out to avoid tangling with the calving ice. He told us it was the largest calving he had ever seen in the 40 years of taking people there. All I can say is WOW.
Marsha and I befriended some fellow travelers, Anna, from New Mexico and Scott and Dawn from Wisconsin. Once back in Valdez us five went out for diner together. It was a fantastic day!
Tufted puffins on the left and a horned puffin on the right
Seeing North America 