Sunday, September 9, 2012
Cheri Sept-8-12
11:03 AM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
The vans were lined up for departure at 8:45am. Last call was made at 9am and we were off to Whittier to board the Major Marine Tour boat for our Prince William Sound Glacier tour.
We traveled down along Turnagain Arm and spotted some Beluga Whales in the bay.
Whittier is about 60 miles south of Anchorage on the Seward Highway. The only way into Whittier is through a 2.5 mile tunnel.
The train and road traffic take turns using the tunnel. The schedule allows traffic going into Whittier 15 minutes in the bottom of the hour and outgoing traffic 15 minutes at the top of the hour. The train, both freight & passenger uses it in between.
We made it to the tunnel at just the right time. We passed through and pulled over—Gay and I went on up to purchase the tickets and then led our group into the parking lot.
I passed out the tickets and at 11:45 am we boarded the boat. We were assigned tables 1 through 5. Our group took over almost all the seating on the upper deck.
Our 5-hour catamaran cruise pulled out of the harbor at 12:15. Gay got a glimpse of a whale right there in the harbor. I was on the wrong side of the boat!
Our tour included an all you can eat meal of salmon & prime rib with all the fixings. We were all served before going out into the bay very far. It was delicious.
We cruised around and saw harbor seals, sea otters, sea lions and lots of birds. We had a Forest Ranger on board who narrated our trip for us.
We passed by a working salmon hatchery.
We were shown many glaciers and as we entered the Harriman Fjord, we saw Surprise Glacier, which was the highlight of the tour.
This massive 300 ft. glacier featured towering blue ice sculptures. We were lucky enough to see it calve twice. The blue in the iceberg was stunning.
We headed back to the dock through the bits of icebergs surrounding the boat.
Once we were away for the iceberg, we were served dessert.
We had our binoculars out looking at the many waterfalls and wildlife. Once back in the harbor they all spotted the whale again. I missed it again.
As soon as we docked, we all hot footed it to the vans so we could make it through the tunnel at 6pm.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. They told us on the boat that there is only a 1or 2 percent chance of having a sunny day, God presentenced us a perfect day for our Cruise.
To see pictures of the day click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Glacier Cruise.
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