Valdez: Kayaking in Prince William Sound

You’d think we’d be hesitant to get on a boat again after our recent excursion to Kenai Fjords (a.k.a. the Vomit Voyage).  But that didn’t stop us from climbing aboard a water taxi this morning, which took us out into Prince William Sound for a day of kayaking with Pangaea Tours.  The weather was perfect – sunny and clear, for once – and no one threw up on us (or at all, thank goodness).  The taxi dropped a group of us off near the Columbia Glacier, and off we went.

The Columbia Glacier is one of the most active tidewater glaciers in North America.  This is because it’s in catastrophic retreat, which basically means that the sea ice is melting and breaking off much faster than the glacier is flowing.  From our drop-off point, the glacier was still a good ten miles away – not something we would be able to reach by kayak in an afternoon.  But we were able to kayak around in the sea of small icebergs that were between us and the glacier’s face, which was pretty cool to us, especially since we’d already seen a glacier calving when we went to Tracy Arm Fjord.

The Columbia Glacier is visible in the middle of the photo – it is ten miles away

As we kayaked, curious seals would poke their heads up out of the water to get a look at us, then quickly disappear with a splash as we approached.  We also saw some adorable sea otters but they never came close enough to the kayak while we had the camera out (we need a waterproof GoPro for the next trip).  We did get a good photo of these two otters from the deck of the water taxi, though.  So cute!

The sea lions we saw from the water taxi weren’t shy at all.  They were enjoying a rare day of sunshine and just ignored us as we circled around them.

Paddling near Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound

Our guide was surprised at how many big icebergs were floating in the water today.  He said usually they break up by the time they get this far out in the bay.  We were lucky to see a couple of big ones roll over and our jaws dropped in awe when a huge one broke up and pieces exploded up out of the water around it.  That was pretty cool.  Of course, because we do not have the aforementioned GoPro, our camera was stuck in a ziploc bag tucked inside a pocket for that big event.

Somehow we still managed to snap over a hundred photos throughout the afternoon.  (Don’t worry, I won’t post them all on here!)  I know I mentioned the other day that we were getting a little “glaciered out”, but we are definitely not “over” icebergs yet.