Prince William Sound

We spent the day ( 10 hours) on Prince William Sound yesterday. It was wonderful. The weather was the best. It was sunny and warm as long as we weren't going into the wind. The best part was the glaciers we saw. We saw the Columbia Glacier first. We couldn't get very close to this one because it calfs huge iceburgs as big as our boat. We got about ten miles from Columbia, and the ice field we had to travel through was very icy and you could hear the pieces of ice hitting the hull. Capt. Amanda went very slow so no damage. The next glacier is called Meare. And we could get about a quarter of a mile from it. This one only has little pieces coming off of it. But the noise is like listening to thunder. And the ice made a huge sound as it hits the water. It was the neatest thing I've ever seem.

The glaciers were not all we saw. We saw a mother whale and her calf, tons of birds ,and lots of piles of Stellar Sea Lions on beaches,rocks, and on big pieces of ice. The whales we saw in the sound were feeding on krill and they breached high in the air. It was amazing to see how big they are. And of course we got no pictures of all of this because I can't take it fast enough. One of the whales laid on his back and flapped his big front flippers just to make a big noise, maybe. The cutest thing we saw were rafts of sea otters. There are loads of them up here. The are much bigger than the otters in Monterey. We had a good time, and got very tired.

Today we took a bus tour of the history of Valdez this morning. It was very interesting to learn that the earthquake that hit in 1964 made it neccessary to move the whole town up the hill to solid land. One of our group's mother was born up here in 1912 or so. So he couldn't find any place that she would have known. It is all gone or moved. This whole town as it is, is only 45 years old. Wild

The rest of the day was to do laundry and stuff. We had a potluck and of course we both ate to much. We leave for Tok in the morning. The on to Distruction Bay, YT and then on to Skagway. So it's early to bed because we have 270 miles to go tomorrow. Bye for now.