Stuck in the Bergs!!!

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,  a tale of a fateful trip.    That started from this tropic port
aboard this tiny ship.  Hmmm Hmmmm    a 3 hour tour .. a 3 hour tour!!!

Well our 5-1/2 to 7 hour tour turned into a 10 hour grueling but fantastic trip, caught in the icebergs of the Columbia Glacier in Valdez.  Here's our little ship, however it's not too tiny.  A steel hulled beauty piloted by Captain Fred, his wife and three college girls working for the summer.

Our first stop in the fairly cold weather was a group of sea otters basking in the bay.  If there are any problems with the oil company (you remember the oil container ship that ran aground in Valdez), these guys won't be around.  Captain Fred says they are a good sign that everything is good in Valdez now.

Cute babies, waving their long tails to stay in the group.

Then someone yelled killer whales ... and off we went in search of them.  What a sight to see.  This male laid on his side, flapped his fins a couple of times, then put on a show for us.  

I've seen this on TV a lot ... it's much more fun in person!!

All 30 of us could have gone home happy at this point, which might have prevented what happened later!!

But there was more.  Quite some distance out, Captain Fred was looking for puffins ... and found lots of puffs in this cave.  When he pointed the bow in towards the hole, I couldn't believe he was going to put us on top of this blow-hole.  Everyone on the bow put their hands against the rock wall to keep us from hitting the sides.  

As we backed out, I could smell the next sight to see.  Just to our left were stacks and stacks of sea lions at the water's edge.

A few babies roamed around on the water, but due to the killer whales, they didn't roam very far, except for one guy that got a little too close.  I won't show that picture ... it wasn't pretty and I doubt he will survive.  A good lesson in nature.

Hanging on by her toenails, good spots to bask in the sun are limited by the big bulls pushing everyone off the rocks.

Here's one giving a baby "what for"!!!

As we headed out to the glacier, lots of icebergs started to show up.  Having stood on the bow for the last two hours, it was getting frightfully cold, so we went to the stern to get out of the wind.  It's sunny and gorgeous now!!!

Flying around and squawking, although at quite a distance were the eagles I had been looking for.

Soooooo, check out the ice.  The further out we got, the more I thought "he's certainly NOT going out there" ... and out there we went.

A pair here ... again, VERY far away.  Yes, it really is this beautiful ... the water changes from turquoise to blue to black.  

Around every large iceberg were more babies to see.  This little seal, almost full grown now, took a dive when we got too close.  No, he's not on land ... he in the middle of the icebergs with us!!

And it got worse ... and worse ... and here were two more baby seals to take our minds off the HUGE icebergs we are traveling through ... at 2 miles per hour.

At about 2-1/2 miles from the glacier, we finally couldn't go further and stopped for pictures.  You can see two glaciers in the far distance.  One looks like a road, but the entire thing is ice.  Another comes from behind the brown mountain on the left.  

So here she is ... the Columbia Glacier up close and personal.  The face is around 300 feet high and extends down to over 1300 feet under water.  This is the calving edge, where the ice breaks off and falls into the water, causing what we are floating in.

The crystal blue ice is where calving has recently occurred.  See how high that wall is?  See how high the chunks in the water are??  Yup ... we are in the middle of that!!  Pretty scary!!

It's now 30 some degrees outside with a nice breeze.  I could tell you how cold the water is, but Captain Fred's thermometer only goes down to 30.  It's MUCH colder in the water.  Picture time!!  This crew doesn't even try to gouge you another few dollars.  They take your picture with YOUR camera!!  

Pretty crazy!!!  Now, it's time to go.  It took us 15 minutes to just get turned around without jamming an iceberg in the hull and sinking us.  I'm pretty sure everyone is thinking the same as me.  In fact, I KNOW so, because everyone went inside except Patty, Dan and I.

Here's your iceberg lesson for the day.  The glacier, as it is pushing down the mountain, makes a big moraine in front of it.  That means a big hole with an edge, like a punch bowl.  The biggest calving icebergs to fall off the face, are deeper than the punch bowl, and so as the tide goes out, get grounded on the lip and can't move at all.  The space in the lip that we went through was only twice as wide as the boat, and full of smaller icebergs.  You can imagine, as the tide goes out, so do all the icebergs you see here, effectively blocking your exit.  If that space in the lip gets too jammed up (35-40 deep and 50 feet wide), you're staying for awhile.  

You could actually SEE the water as we went in towards the glacier, but on the way out, it looked like a solid mass.  As we went through the moraine, we had to push a huge iceberg ahead of us, hoping it wouldn't get caught on the bottom.  At only 35-45 feet deep, there was a good chance of that happening.  We continued along sooooo slowly, at barely an idle, pushing icebergs the size of houses off to the side.   I felt like the old explorers who came here in wooden ships, pushing the ice aside until they finally couldn't move any further, as the ice froze up around them.  

Two hours later, we are STILL in the bergs .....

Here's a good example of what's below.  Captain Fred says 10% iceberg above, 90% below.  That's even scarier ... some of the ones we bumped against trying to get through, didn't move AT ALL!!!  They were that big!!

Almost in the clear, we passed a few blue beauties ... this one has tilted to the right ... the straight line used to be the water line.  As we were moving along slowly, we saw a couple turn over.  Spectacular!!!

Free!!!!  We are finally free of the bergs!!!  Three hours behind schedule (my poor baby dogs), but heading back quickly now.  Until we spy some Dahl dolphins.  These guys scream past the boat, hitting the surface with a huge splash, and big WHOOSH as they exhale, gulp another breath and head back down.  They played at the bow of the boat as we cruised along.  WAY too fast for a good photo, but you get the idea!

Heading back to the dock, the huge "end of the pipeline" oil plant here in Valdez is pretty anti-climatic.  It's the Alaska Pipeline that brings oil here, to fill container ships headed for processing plants much further south of the US.  Maybe THAT's why our fuel is so expensive!!!

It's now almost 9:00pm  ... we are all exhausted from the cold as much as the iceberg stress.  It was the most amazing trip I have ever taken .. the crew were wonderful (brownies for $1) and provided lots of reasonably priced food, including Clam Chowder.  Wish I had known, my ham sandwich just didn't do much for me!!  

I don't think anything can top this trip ... today clouds are rolling in and a little rain is expected.  That's okay, nothing can dampen our spirits after getting stuck in the bergs!!!