7/14/19 - Day 16 - Ice and More Ice

Purse Seiners heading out for an opener tomorrow
We cruised up to the Columbia Glacier today on the 75' Lu Lu Belle. I kid you not, the skipper talked for 90% of the 9 hour trip! Information ranged from types of fishing boats, peculiarities of the water mammals, early explorers, types of glaciers, glacier characteristics, and oil pipeline contruction, implementation, and affects.

The temperature in Valdez when we left was about 66 degrees, but when we got to within a few miles of the glacier it dropped to 36 degrees. We FINALLY used the cold weather clothes we had packed for the trip :-)
Columbia Glacier with Chugach Mountains in the back

The skipper has been running this tour for the last 40+ years. He had a lot of history about what has happened to this glacier (receding) and several other glaciers (advancing) over the course of those years. He knows the waters and animals well, but he is rather crazy at times. He puts the bow of the boat into caves along the way looking for "Puffins", I think really he knew there were blowholes that would spray the passengers. Seriously, we were within a few feet of jagged rocks looking for illusive puffins!

We stayed at the base of the glacier for over an hour watching for calving (part of it breaking off). It was rather eerie. It was cold and still except for thunderous "cracks" coming from the glacier and "clicks" coming from the tiny chunks of ice floating in the bay.



We spent the majority of the trip on the flying bridge. Although we had our cold weather gear on, we were looking forward to the Irish Coffee we knew was waiting in our camper.  There are a few more things we want to check out tomorrow, and then we will head back up Keyhole Canyon and continue our journey.
One of the many sea otters we saw on our cruise
Saw LOTS of sealions - as the skipper put it, "The endangered kind"

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