Whales, Seals, Otters and Porpoises

Friday, May 29, 2009 – Day 29 – 4 Weeks Away

We started off the day with a visit to the Valdez Museum. The museum had been recommended by the CAA Tour Book but it did not have a Gem status.  Recommended time was 30 minutes but to do it properly it took much longer. We spent over two hours there.  It showed how the natives would employ fish wheels to catch the spawning salmon in the murky, glacier-fed rivers. There was a large display about the Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred twenty years ago, on March 24, 1989.  It spilled  about 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.  Litigation is still going on in the courts and oil is still being found and cleaned-up in some of the smaller bays.  There was a limited display in this building about the Good Friday, 1964 earthquake that almost destroyed the “Old” Valdez and claimed 32 lives.  They have a separate building that houses the collection “Remembering Old Valdez”, which we will visit tomorrow.

We boarded the good ship Lu-Lu Belle in the afternoon for what is billed as the Glacier and Wildlife Tour in Prince William Sound.  There are a number of boat tour operators to choose from in Valdez; but we decided to go with this particular boat as it is a little smaller and more intimate than the more heavily advertised tours.  The tour is billed at 5 hours PLUS.  We were out for almost 8 full hours as Captain Fred, kept searching the waters for whales. He kept promising us that he would have us home before dark…remember though that the sun doesn’t set here till about 11:00 PM.

It is still fairly early in the season so the whales are a little harder to find.  We eventually found some and they put on a little show for us.  One came alongside the boat and gracefully rolled.  The sound of the whales “spouting” as they clear their air holes is just like you hear on the science shows; kind of a long lingering sneeze.  We saw a mother and her calf who would mimic her every move.  These were humpback whales and they were very hard to capture on film as they were either too fast or I was too slow as my frozen fingers couldn’t hit the shutter fast enough. 

We had seen a number of sea otters floating in “rafts” and a large colony of harbour seals. 

These guys almost posed for us.  Captain Fred brought us within about 7 miles of the Columbia Glacier, the second largest tidewater glacier in North America.   He threaded the boat through an ice berg field where the crew took pictures of tourists on the bow sprit. The crew then did some ice fishing.  Literally picking up chunks of ice to use in their coolers.  Glacial ice can only be described as ice blue, except for the ones that are carrying layers of glacial till or boulders.  On the way back to Valdez, the Lulu Belle was escorted by at least a dozen Dahl Porpoises.  Captain Fred kept up a running monolog during most of the trip describing the history of the area; giving lessons on marine life and describing the geologic forces that have affected the Prince William Sound and Valdez area.  He kept mentioning attractions and things to see and do that would lengthen our stay in Valdez. Had we done everything that he mentioned we would be here till at least Labour Day. We disembarked at the end of the day very happy and fully satisfied with our cruise.  We would highly recommend this tour to anyone coming to Valdez.  We returned to the trailer and crashed for the night.  Totally exhausted and totally exhilarated.