Postcard from Alaska: Prince William Sound

We arrived in Anchorage Wednesday afternoon, got settled into our hotel, and walked around town a bit.  Anchorage is a big city and, well, big cities aren't my thing.  The city has a lot of big square buildings, noisy traffic, and tourists from cruise ships crowding the restaurants and gift shops.

Thursday morning we got out of town, going an hour or more south and then taking a cruise around Prince William Sound on a small catamaran.  There were 40 people on board, with a an open deck on the second story outside the cabin where we sat.  It was warm in Anchorage, guys were wearing teeshirts and shorts and girls were in sleeveless tops as they drove around town with their elbows sticking out of the windows of their jeeps.

The temperature dropped as we drove south, and when we emerged from a single lane, two-mile long tunnel with a railroad track down the middle it was cool enough to need a sweatshirt.  Once on the boat, we headed around the fjords in Prince William Sound.  We were out all day, a day with brilliant sunshine after a month of rain.

As we neared the glaciers, we zipped up our jackets and I put up my hood.  People donned ski hats and shivered in the stiff wind.  We drifted for awhile in front of Surprise Glacier and were rewarded with a huge calving -- pieces of the glacier breaking loose and crashing into the sea.

We saw salmon swimming, churning the water as they followed the tide.

Otters floated on their backs in the water, then turned and dove as we came close.  Seals slept on ice burgs.  Bald eagles watched us from the tops of trees.  And whales dove in the distance.

It was a magical day.