Alaska Cruise: Highlights

Our cruise about the Regent Seven Seas Mariner from Seward (where the Alaska Railway train dropped us off within a few yards from the ship) to Vancouver was a lovely ride. This is the largest cruise ship we've taken (700 passengers) and, while it lacked the intimacy of the Seabourn and Silversea ships we'd sailed in Europe, it was in great condition, having been updated within the last seven years, and its lounges and facilities were well-situated for great views fore and aft. We will consider Regent for future voyages, though the somewhat smaller, brand-new ship being brought online by Seabourn is very intriguing.

We spent little time in the towns were we docked en route (Sitka, Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan), opting instead to use our time on port for nature excursions. We trolled for salmon, took a helicopter tour to a glacier, went whale-watching and took a floatplane tour -- standard Alaska cruise fare, but lots of fun. (You'll find some photo highlights in my previous post.) Some highlights of the cruise follow.

Salmon in Sitka: We trolled for salmon in the waters off Sitka aboard the Sophia K with George and Raven, his black Labrador retriever, who took a liking to Ann. As we got to one of George's favorite spots, he pointed out a sea lion and said, "Have a look, because we're not going to fish where he's fishing." Apparently fighting a sea lion for a salmon catch is never a good idea. George found another spot where the herring were running, meaning that feeding salmon would follow. He set four lines with herring bait, and began circling. After a somewhat slow start, one of our three fellow guests reeled in a 10-pound coho, and shortly thereafter his wife reeled in another. When my turn came, Raven began racing back and forth and barking as a line off starboard began straining. I pulled the rod from the holder and began the dance, and within five minutes I had landed a 19 pound king salmon. This high-definition documentary of the battle lasts only 2 1/2 minutes, but is recommended only for close family members (zzzzz...). We landed a second king of similar size before calling it a morning. When we docked, a firm was waiting to clean, cut and flash-freeze 8-ounce portions of my king to be shipped home. In the weeks to come, we'll be serving planked salmon for 40, or maybe try to give some away.

Skagway and the Meade Glacier: Our helicopter flight to the Meade Glacier outside of Skagway was breathtaking. It was a crystalline day, and we were aboard a Euro AF350 copter operated by Temsco (they seem to have the tourist helicopter monopoly in southeast Alaska, but they run a tight ship). Copters part frequently for various glaciers, and our flight took about six or seven minutes across mountains and several beautiful valleys, including one steep green Eden aptly named Paradise Valley. The copter set down on a long flat stretch of Meade Glacier and, equipped with safety vests and grippy overshoes, we followed our guide for a 45-minute walk across 700-foot-thick ice that extended back another 30 miles to British Columbia. Ann scooped up a handful of glacier ice at some point, and several of us popped pieces in our mouths. "What does it taste like?" our guide asked. "Absolutely nothing," I responded. "That's right," he said, "that's several hundred year old water you're drinking. Perfect water. And any time anyone tells you that you're drinking 'glacier water' from a bottle, they're lying - now you're tasting the real thing."

The Mariner also made a several-hour visit to the Hubbard Glacier, getting us within a couple hundred yards of the face as we glided through silky-cold, silty water and ice chunks. We heard four or five cracks in the ice while we were facing the glacier, but we didn't witness a calving. What we did see were bald eagles and sea lions looking like little caraway seeds atop huge icebergs.

Whales in Juneau: We spent some time at the Mendenhall Glacier, which we approached through a rain forest rich with lichens and moss. As we ended our visit, a bear whom our guide described as a "black bear in his cinnamon fur stage" ambled across a small creek within an interestingly short distance. You can see him in the photos from the previous post. At a nearby harbor, we boarded the Navigator, a solid-hull aluminum boat with an inflatable ring around it, and sped off to Auke Bay, where our captain Bob said we'd have a very good chance of seeing humpbacks. As it turned out, we had the kind of afternoon that would make a National Geographic photographer's day - unfortunately, I am not that kind of photographer, so I'll have to do more telling than showing.

Before long, we'd begun spotting humpback flukes and spouts in the Bay, and it was clear that there was a sizable group of whales a few hundred yards away. Bob dropped a "hydrophone" into the bay, and turned up the volume. We were able to hear the whales signaling one another in a high-pitched, plaintive wail, and the sounds of several whales grew to a spooky crescendo. "This is gonna be good," Bob said. A few moments later, we watched in awe as about a dozen humpbacks rose up out of the water nearly simultaneously, each of their mouths full of hundreds of gallons of sea water that contained hundreds of pounds of herring, and then crashing their bodies back into the sea. We stood there in awe.

Bob explained that the whales were using a "bubble net" to catch the herring that were schooling in the bay. One of the whales would begin circling the school, exhaling to create a bubble net that would confuse and confine the fish. Then the whales would dive as a group, come up from underneath, and engulf them in their mouths, swishing their tongues to force out the water through their baleen while the herring remained trapped inside. They would then swallow their catch a few at a time through their throats that are about the diameter of a grapefruit.

Within 10 minutes, we began to see multiple flukes once again a few hundred yards off in another direction. Bob raced us off toward the group, dropped the hydrophone again, and once again we heard the crescendo of whale cries building - and within a few moments, we had a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the second time in a day, as the group of 12 breached for a second time and gulped jawsful of herring.

My camera managed to miss both of these moments, but here's a bit of footage of the whales' flukes and spouts and backs between and after the breaching. (If you stay on YouTube and search "whales auke bay" you'll see far better footage of these guys from other whale-watchers.)

Inspiration: The remarkable blue color of the glaciers - the only color that the densely-packed glacier ice does not absorb - inspired us to consult with our bartender (once back on board) as to whether there is any such thing as a "glaciertini.". As he had never heard of one (nor had we seen one on any menus in our travels), we asked him to experiment with us. His first effort - vodka, blue curacao (an inevitable ingredient for color), and some fruit juice, was poured down the drain pretty quickly. But his second try -- gin, a splash of blue curacao, and shaved ice, shaken and poured, then hit with a splash of club soda -- had the glacial blue just right, and tasted like something we might actually consider serving. Therefore, you can consider that concoction to be the official Glaciertini. (TM)