Valdez Cruise

These are a few of the pics from our cold, rainy, windy Sunday cruise on the yacht Lu-Lu Belle. The captain built and maintains this yacht by himself. The interior is mahogany and teak and there are oriental rugs on the floor.



This is the Peter Pan fish processing plant next to our campground.

Leaving harbor.

This is about as close as you can get to the Valdez oil terminal since 9/11/01. This is where the famous Alaska oil pipeline ends after its 800 mile trip from Prudhoe Bay.

These are pictures of the shoreline as we went through the narrows. Even on a foggy, rainy day, it's beautiful.

Just another eagle that seems to be under attack from a crow.

Bridal veil falls #353.


These porpoises seemed to be toying with the boat by swimming across the bow and then diving out of sight. We were cruising at about 22 knots. They can swim over 35 knots.



Steller seals seemed to be everywhere along this stretch of shoreline. They're funny to watch.




I finally got my whale tail shot. I missed his first dive, but about 5 minutes later he surfaced again. It was raining pretty hard and my pants were soaked and the air temp was 41 degrees, but I perservered and got this as he dove for the second time. We waited for another 10 minutes before we decided to leave the area. I was glad to get inside to get warm.

As we approached small ice floes, this eagle took off from one of them.

The captain skillfully navigated through the ever increasing number of icebergs till we were surrounded. These had been shed by the Columbia Glacier which we could not see because of the weather conditions.





The captain had his two crew girls take photos of each of us with our own cameras with the icebergs in the background. What a thrill!

And finally, the captain of the Lu-Lu Belle, Captain Fred. His narration during the cruise was fantastic. He made an otherwise lousy day into a fun and memorable one.