26 Glacier Cruise from Whittier

The catamaran Klondike Express.

Harvard Glacier revisited.

I forget the name of this one...

Sea otters.

Egg Rocks and Stellar sealion colony.

Commercial fishing ship.

The beautiful Blackmore Glacier and waterfall.

The black-legged kittiwake rookery.

Sunset from my balcony.

 Monday, August 14^th.

What a difference a day makes! The night before we got to Whittier, I tried to book a catamaran cruise of Prince William Sound but was told I could not because we were not staying in Whittier but taking the train to Anchorage. When I got to Anchorage my tour guide Julie gave me a welcome note about upcoming things and lo and behold, I was booked to do the catamaran cruise this morning…. I’d booked it weeks ago in Toronto and forgot! So, this morning I walked over to the Captain Cook Hotel to catch the bus. All the passengers from the cruise ship were booked into a couple of different hotels here. I am in the Westmark Hotel. I immediately saw that the Cook is a much nicer hotel with lots of amenities, a restaurant, and shops. Oh well, I thought that’s the breaks. I took a coach from Anchorage back to Whittier to catch the cruise. During the two hour drive the female coach tour gave us a ton of information (most of which I’d heard yesterday) in a very droney voice. She did tell us that Whittier was originally built as a military base because of its deep-water port that remains ice free year around and has almost constant cloud cover. As such there were only two buildings built for all of their needs. One was a high-rise apartment complex with a mess and food store below. The other was a shopping and entertainment complex, which was destroyed by the 1964 earthquake. The high-rise now houses 80% of the population of the town! Can you imagine living that close with almost everyone in town? As we crossed a bridge over the train tracks, I caught a glimpse of a female moose and calf as the bus startled them and they ran off. When we got to catamaran, I found myself seated with another single male passenger. He turned out to be Alberto from Mexico. He was 36 and was on holiday for a week from food processing company where he manages 5000 people. We had a good day. At first, I thought it was going to be a bad day because there were over 300 people onboard, but it turned out to be fine as there was lots of assigned seating indoors and plenty of outdoor areas on three levels. The catamaran was fast, cruising along at 30 knots per hour. They served us a good salmon chowder soup enroute. The first stop on the trip was up College fjord to see Harvard Glacier where I’d been on Saturday with the cruise ship. But, this turned out to be much better. The weather conditions were clearer and the catamaran could get much closer to the glacier. The views were spectacular, and we spent about a half hour there. We spent the next few hours cruising around a couple of other fjords and islands where we saw lots of other glaciers. We stopped at three others including the beautiful Blackman’s Glacier which had a large waterfall running out from beneath it. We also saw dozens of sea otters floating on their backs as we passed; at Egg Rocks we saw a Stellar sealion colony and a black-legged kittiwake rookery. We arrived back at Whittier at 7:30 where we loaded up on the same bus with the same woman. Just outside Whittier harbour we saw a black bear feeding on salmon. When we got back to Anchorage, I decided to have dinner at 9 at the BrewHouse I couldn’t get into last night. Turns out there was still an hour wait for a table, but I could sit in the bar section. The place is a goldmine, great atmosphere, good food and home brewed beer on sight. I went back to the hotel and found that the internet was still not working, so I took my computer down to the Captain Cook Hotel where I figured since it was a much nicer hotel their internet would work. I was right. So, I finished putting yesterday’s blog together and posted it. I saw there was a woman there who worked for Holland America and asked her how they decide who gets put in the nice hotel and who in the shabby one when we are all paying the same money. She didn’t really have an answer and just said the mine had changed ownership and was going downhill. She suggested I write to Holland America asking for compensation. As I walked back it was still light out at 10 o’clock. I went back to my room and found my key to room 401 wouldn’t work. I went back to the lobby where the deskman told me my key didn’t work because I was in room 411. Not so I told him, I slept in 401 last night, you put my luggage in their last night when I was having dinner, I was just in it getting my computer and the rest of my stuff is in there. He said he’d have to ask his supervisor what he should do. I waited I few minutes then got mad. I told him, if you don’t trust me, come up with me and I’ll show you. ‘Fine I give you a key to 401 and I hope you don’t find someone else in that room.’ Hello, can you say TripAdvisor? As soon as I get internet, they’ll hear from me as will Holland America. I wrote this up, packed my bag for early departure tomorrow and went to bed.