Saw lot of “good” birds - Pigeon Guillemots, Harlequin Ducks, Black-legged Kittwakes, and a Red-throated Loon. Also, Bald Eagles are plentiful - you can see them soaring around and perching in the trees and on power poles.
Sunday was a rainy day. After church we visited a couple of gift shops and took another drive over to the pipeline terminal.
Yesterday (Monday) was a fabulous day - we took a 9 hour boat ride with the Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife Cruises. The tour boat was the Valdez Spirit - an 83 foot twin-hull catamaran with two 800 horsepower diesel engines. Unbelievable vessel - 20 knots smooth as glass. We had a window seat in the inside top deck, but spent a lot of time on the outer deck.
From Valdez, we went out into the Prince William Sound through the narrows into the Valdez Arm.
As we cruised along, there was lots of wildlife to see. Sea Otters were plentiful.
The first big attraction was the Columbia Glacier. The boat weaved it’s way through all the ice burgs to get close.
After a great chicken alfredo over rice lunch we cruised around to Mears Glacier.
On both the outbound and inbound legs of the cruise we saw several Humpback Whales.
We saw lots of birds, Horned and Tufted Puffins, Marbled Murrelets, Mew Gulls,, and Black-legged Kittiwakes. We also passed a colony of Stellar Sea Lions.
Horned Puffin
This was a fantastic cruise - one of the things we were really looking forward to doing in Alaska!! What a wonderful experience.
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