Cruising
Prince William Sound

A cruise on the Spirit of Columbia brings Alaska’s amazing glaciers into focus.

As we motored away from the dock at the start of a four-day cruise through the icy blue waters of south-central Alaska’s Prince William Sound, I was surprised to hear the shrill squawking of gulls above the engine noise. Scurrying outside onto the deck of our 78-passenger ship, CruiseWest’s Spirit of Columbia, I witnessed the first of many natural spectacles I would see over the next few days. Tens of thousands of black-legged kittiwakes —handsome gulls with white breasts, yellow beaks, and black-tipped wings and feet—were defending nests wedged into the cliffs over Passage Canal from an interloping bald eagle, no doubt in search of some tasty treats.

Hanging Glaciers

Before I knew it, Karen, our cruise’s Exploration Leader and a naturalist well-versed in Alaskan ecology, handed her binoculars to me so I could get a closer look at the action. Now I could make out a nonchalant-looking eagle perched smack dab in the middle of the cliff face, apparently ignoring all the commotion around him, perhaps having just enjoyed a kittiwake egg or two for lunch. But suddenly, with a swoop of his wings, the eagle took flight and was gone, leaving the kittiwake colony much calmer for his absence. And with that, the Spirit of Columbia turned east en route to Blackstone Glacier, and all passengers were summoned to the ship’s lounge for a safety orientation and meet-and-greet session with the ship’s captain.

With the phrase “one hand for me and one hand for the ship” emblazoned in my brain after the orientation, I headed back out on deck to check out our first massive glacier up close. In less than an hour, we had motored out of Passage Canal and hooked a right into Blackstone Bay for a close encounter with a massive “hanging” glacier, so called because the wall of ice appears to lean out over the gently but constantly lapping ocean water below.

Karen regaled us with her own accounts of ice chunks the size of school buses suddenly falling off the glacier’s wall and into Blackstone Bay. It was hard to believe that the tranquil twilight scene we were witnessing, with our boat gently swaying in the swell, could be interrupted by such a thunderous event. And then it happened. Right before our eyes, a 40-foot-tall chunk of ice broke free and crashed down the glacier into the water with a terrible thud.

The wave caused by the calving rocked our boat a little more vigorously than any of us newbie guests were used to, but everyone was quick to remember “one hand for me and one hand for the ship,” and order was soon restored. While some of us begged off to bed, others stayed to watch for more calving before we made haste to our next stop overnight. It had been a magical first day aboard the Spirit of Columbia by all accounts.

Porpoise Encounters

The next morning the calm voice of Karen came over my cabin’s loudspeaker (which passengers could turn on or off at their whim) to announce that some Dall’s porpoises were riding bow waves off the port side of the boat, and that French toast with maple syrup and fresh strawberries was available for breakfast (as well as the usual choice of omelets, pastries, and cereal) in the dining room. Now that’s my kind of wake-up call. I slipped on some slides and shuffled out my cabin door to see what Karen was talking about. After all, city boy that I am, I didn’t even know what a Dall’s porpoise looked like.

Peering over the port-side railing right outside my cabin door, I saw two 7-foot-long shiny black dolphin-like marine mammals jockeying for prime position on the bow wave emanating from the boat. I couldn’t believe that the graceful dorsal-finned porpoises were keeping up with us. And they actually appeared to be playing, having a friendly game of “keep up with the cruise ship.”

Later, I caught up with Karen and asked her about the natural history of the Dall’s porpoise. She told me that the species is known as extremely fast swimmers, sometimes moving through the water so rapidly that they throw up a plume of water, and that they love to ride bow waves, often keeping up with boats traveling at speeds of 30 miles per hour. They feed on squids, crustaceans, and deep-sea fishes. Their known predators are orcas and sharks, although thousands are harpooned each year by Japanese fishing fleets while others are unintentionally caught in commercial salmon fishing nets.

Other creatures we got a good look at during the course of the cruise included harbor seals lounging on icebergs, sea otters “rafting” together by floating on their backs and linking fins, humpback whales in vigorous feeding mode, and Steller sea lions barking ceaselessly at nothing in particular from a rocky outcrop. The relatively small size of the Spirit of Columbia allowed us to get much closer to the action than the bigger cruise ships can, and it was obvious from the smiles on passengers’ faces that they appreciated what they were seeing.

The Oyster Lady

On our third and final day aboard, Susie the Oyster Lady skiffed over from her floating houseboat to tell us about life as an oyster farmer in Prince William Sound. We got the feeling that Susie relished the opportunity to meet up with whichever CruiseWest ship might be passing through her watery neighborhood, as the life aquatic she was leading was not replete with social interaction. But Susie’s social skills nevertheless put us to shame, as she infected us with laughter and had us wide-eyed with tales of dunking in freezing Prince William Sound to take a bath. The burgeoning business she runs with her husband David supplies prized Prince William Sound oysters to restaurants up and down the West Coast of the United States, as well as to some of Anchorage’s more upscale dining haunts. Given that she was not equipped to sell direct to consumers and couldn’t even provide us with a business card, we knew that Susie’s visit was for mutual entertainment and education.

The ship’s chef, who had been feeding us three excellent and varied meals every day, saved his best for last on our final night aboard, with wild king salmon and prime rib among the dinner choices. As we toasted the crew and staff for a job well done, the captain sneaked up to the bridge to direct us to the Chenega Glacier for one last panorama before heading back to land in the morning.

Sunset at Chenega Glacier

With the sun starting its descent, a large proportion of the guests were crowded on the ship’s foredeck for a last look at golden light refracted by floating and landlubbing ice. The captain skillfully threaded the needle between several Cadillac-sized chunks of floating ice as we slowly approached the Chenega Glacier. When we got as close as possible—within a few hundred feet of an ice dam representing the glacier’s limit—the captain cut the engine so we could all bask in the quietude of the last rays of sunlight glittering off the glacier’s mile-wide face.

As jagged peaks in the distance began to obscure the sun altogether, Karen described to us that this glacier, like many others we had seen over the past few days, was in a state of catastrophic retreat—meaning, in layman’s terms, that they were melting fast. Many of the glaciers around Prince William Sound may be gone within a quarter century, thanks mostly to global warming. Despite the sobering discussion, I couldn’t help but feel special that I was getting a chance to see some of nature’s great wonders here in Alaska before they were gone forever.

Northwest Travel Magazine January/February 2007