CHANGE MY LOCATION
Entertainment
California News
Multimedia News
Side trips make Alaska cruises complete
SEE THE LATEST ON THIS STORY
Related Topics: Alaska
)
A mother humpback and her baby roll and cruise alongside the ship’s whale-watching boat. The whales come north to Alaska to feed and go south to breed.
Alaska (Map, News) - The expanse of glaciers glistened crystalline white as our small twin-engine float plane banked to give us a better look. We were on a side trip out of Juneau, Alaska, the first port for the Amsterdam, our Holland American Line cruise ship out of Seattle.
Beneath us, glaciers crept inexorably toward the sea. Some were flat sheets, others chunky with gravel-like surfaces, and a few were flat with the appearance of sandpaper. On all of these, pools of blue ice — formed from tremendous compression forces — gave us a new appreciation for azure, turquoise and other subtle shades of blue.
This was just one of the many joys of our seven-day cruise to our 49th state that included side trips to enjoy calving glaciers, misty fjords, native arts and totems, arctic wildlife, migrating and feeding whales, visits to canneries and views of foraging brown bears, and soaring, salmon-clutching eagles.
Such adventures are side trips from any of the Alaska-bound cruise ships that weave through the inward passage to hit variously Juneau, Glacier Bay, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria, B.C., in Canada.
The Amsterdam cruise itself was a delightful midsummer adventure with all the amenities and delicious food expected of cruise lines. We also experienced spring-like temperatures, with varied the side trips making the vacation complete. Cruise ships travel at night, mooring in port during daytime for excursions that should be arranged before leaving port but sometimes can be adjusted at sea.
We did that with one trip, a last-minute switch (with full credit) to an alternative boat trip through misty fjords, where we spotted steroid-size starfish in the shallows next to the rock-strewn shoreline. We also spotted bears along the shore and bald eagles resting on dead limbs after stooping on salmon that run the bays and rivers during annual spawning runs.
Some stops are not to ports, such as our time in Glacier Bay for an up close-and-personal ship’s view of small icebergs calving from glaciers, along with a surrounding curtain of vertical mist from whales exhaling and refilling their lungs as they dove on rich fields of krill.
It was a great experience — one that we wouldn’t mind repeating.
Comments from Examiner Readers
9:32 AM MST on Wed., Aug. 20, 2008 re: "Get hip to this kindly tip on Route 66"
Report as inappropriate
5:54 PM MST on Thu., Jul. 17, 2008
re: "Berkeley Springs is good for the soul"
Report as inappropriate
6:59 AM MST on Fri., Jun. 20, 2008
re: "A long Baltimore weekend filled with good times"
Report as inappropriate
8:31 PM MST on Sun., Jun. 15, 2008
re: "Get hip to this kindly tip on Route 66"
Report as inappropriate
1:50 PM MST on Sat., May. 31, 2008
re: "A long Baltimore weekend filled with good times"
Report as inappropriate
9:55 AM MST on Fri., Jan. 25, 2008
re: "As of yet, undiscovered"
Report as inappropriate
Alvarez fan said:
i don't know what I like better, his travel stories or when he takes us into the kitchens of regular baltimore folks. keep it coming.
3 agree | 1 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
I enjoy the examiner paper when I can get one. But they go quickly out of those boxes. I live in Middle River Md we use to have some in the shopping center across the street at Martin Plaza but the paper is no long delivered there. Why I dont know. If I am lucky I can get one in Essex if there is any on my way to work. But usually I dont get one. Can you delivery them at my home? Just wondering. Let me know. If you can I will send you my address. Carl Cook
6 agree | 5 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
ate asparagus, too at Squires said:
Rafael, you're still writing in The Examiner! Yeah! Will look forward to your Saturday epistles now.
7 agree | 5 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Cole Portier said:
I don't get it either...
6 agree | 5 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
I don't get it...
5 agree | 5 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
Examiner Reader said:
Thanks for sharing those websites. Great ideas of fun things to do in San Diego, and now I have new wineries to visit all over California!
115 agree | 134 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree