Windstar Alaska Cruise, June/July 2023
With 30+ baseball trips, and our epic road trip to Oshkosh Airventure2021, Alaska would bag me my 50th state, so when Janet proposed a WindStar Alaska cruise, I was all in. We had taken WindStart trips before: in 2012 around Italy and up the Dalmatian Coast for our 25th Anniversary and in 2016 in French Polynesia for our (soon to come) 30th Anniversary, so we knew the trip would be on a small ship with naturalists a plenty for us to learn all about Alaska and its wildlife. Their Alaska cruise went north from Vancouver, BC up the Inside Passage to Seward, AK, and Janet tossed in the "Let's take both trips, north and south!" so we ended up with 23 total days on the boat, with only two stops duplicated coming back to Vancouver. What the hell...why not?!?
We had a later flight to Vancouver, and Karen, now living in Millbrae just up from SFO, had her sorority sisters (and my Fans!) in town, so we made pizzas in their new pizza oven and baked chocolate chip cookies to sustain us on the trip. After an uneventful flight (that's always good) we passed through immigration, and as with most international airports, e-immigration kiosks speed up the process, but we miss getting those souvenir stamps in our passports. Janet scored two nights at the Sheraton Wall Center and her status got us in to the business lounge for a snacky dinner.
The next day we spent doing the touristy things in Vancouver: walking to the Granville Island boat shuttle, walking all over Granville Island and its various markets, lunching at Tony's Fish and Seafood, and a long walk back around downtown burning off the mussels and cod we had at lunch. Coming back towards the hotel, we had dinner at Burgoo, which was not really a burger joint but a "comfort food" place where we had excellent biscuits with bacon jam and jambalaya.
Tuesday, June 20 was departure day, so we Uber'd up to the cruise terminal and avoided the long check-in lines for the other ships and had our 200 or so people go through check-in and orientation before boarding the boat. We were on the Star Breeze, which had been refurbished in 2020 to a capacity of 312 passengers and 200 crew, but there weren't 312 passengers on our sailing. After we sailed, we spent the rest of that day and the next on the open ocean once we cleared the northern tip of Vancouver Island. If your wonder how I got north of 200 again, there were extensive buffets for both breakfast and lunch, and very nice sit down dinners on the boat. And yes, they held me down and force fed me!
Despite having her pilot's license, Janet had never flown in a float place, so she arranged a flight with "Island Wings" out of our first stop in Ketchikan. When we docked at 10am, there were already four massive cruise ships docked, but we skirted all the crowds and went on our flight. There were four other people on the flight from the other ships, and Janet gleefully sat in the right seat as we took off and flew over Misty Fjords.
Clearly delighted to finally be in a float plane!
We flew up to a mountain lake for a little leg stretching
Our bush pilot
We flew over several fjords and were surprised when he set us down on a small lake high above the main fjords, and when it came time to switch the right seat, none of the other passengers (all looking a bit green) chose to sit up front so I said "heck yeah" and shot some good video as we cleared the lake and banked towards the waterfall outflow of the lake. Definitely a Bucket List Experience. Once back on the ground, we found a reasonably empty restaurant away from the cruising masses and celebrated the check mark on the bucket list with excellent crab cakes at Alaska King Crab Company. After the flight and lunch, we wandered about in Ketchikan, much of which was built over the water.
Much of Ketchikan is built over the water
The next day, Friday, we spent on the water, moving among the fjords and glaciers around Misty Fjords and Rudyerd Bay. Spectacular views were had all day as our small boat could go places the big boats couldn't.
Our Saturday step was in Wrangell, one of only two ports that we would repeat on this out-and-back tour (the other was Juneau). We hiked south of the dock and took in some Tlingit lodges and watched some fisher-bros come in to port with their salmon catch. That night I got a lousy night's sleep and woke up quite ill as we docked in Sitka. I opted to stay in the room while Janet went on the otter excursion. I barfed my guts out most of that day, and once I got it all out of me, I felt better.
On Monday we sailed in to Tracy Arm, and we were slated to go kayaking, but we bagged it as I still wasn't feeling spry and it was rainy and cold, but again, the views on the fjords were incredible. Now we don't have to tour the fjords of Norway; we got plenty right here in the good ol' USofA.
On Tuesday we were in Haines and tendered in to their pier. We walked in to the little downtown, checked out their city museum, at fish & chips at "The Bamboo Restaurant and Pioneer Bar." On the way back to the pier, we stopped in to a eagle sanctuary where they rehab eagles from broken wings and such.
Convalescing Bald Eagle in Haines
The Haines Pier
Wednesday, Day 9: Juneau. After tendering in from the ship, Janet had arranged for another float plane flight out to the Taku Lodge for a salmon feed. We were the first group of flights to leave that day, and it was a good thing, as low clouds cancelled the four other groups out there. These planes were larger eight passenger Otters and we flew out over a massive group of glaciers on our way out to the lodge.
A Happy Camper
As we landed on the Taku River, we could smell the salmon cooking, and we were greeted by two happy yellow Labbies on the dock. But as soon as we got out of the air flow down on the river, we got our first taste of Alaskan Skeeters, and luckily it was (almost) our last. We were set upon as soon as we got close to the lodge, skeeters trying to make their way through our layers, skeeters all over the Labbies' coats. We made a beeline to the lodge and just about everyone on our flights quickly made it to the shelter of the lodge. The resulting salmon lunch was wonderful, with the ice in our drinks cut from the adjacent glacier as the lodge had no power so the proprietors would take a run up to the glacier once or twice a week to use a chainsaw to cut some ice blocks to use the for the lodge. After lunch we took a short guided hike through the old growth forest around the lodge, but we were successful in keeping the skeeters mostly at bay. Oddly enough, at every stop for the rest of the trip we had no further skeeter encounters...until our return to Wrangell on our hike in to a forest on Dewey Mountain.
Skeeters all over Janet's back on our "nature hike"
Another shot of the amazing glacier on our way back to Juneau
After returning to Juneau, and hearing the rest of the day's flights were cancelled due to weather (whew, we just made it!), we walked around town, where four massive cruise ships were now docked, flooding the town. We stopped in at the Alaskan Brewing Company tap house on the waterfront for some drinks and schnacks. We had an early departure at 3pm and spent Thursday at sea, making the long sailing to Kenai Fjords National Park. It looks like from the current WindStar Alaskan itinerary that the sailings only go as far north as Juneau so we were on one of the last of these longer WindStar sailings.
Thursday, Day 10, was spent at sea crossing the Gulf of Alaska...I can't imagine going on an ocean-crossing cruise; there's just so much you can do cooped up on a boat all day...eating (breakfast and lunch buffets, and, gee, I didn't really need to eat that beautiful treat on the upper lounge after lunch!), reading (I spent a lot of time in the upper lounge reading their books), or walking on the upper deck (17 laps per mile!). But it was all worth it, as on Friday, as small as we were, we were able to snuggle the boat right up close to the Harding Ice Field in the Aialik Fjord...we've seen many glaciers on this trip, from the air and the sea, but it's on a different level getting close enough to HEAR the glacier. And, today we got on a Zodiac and got REALLY close to the glacier, hearing the pops and groans up close, and observing several instances of calving...which sounded like thunder...LOUD thiunder. Awesome day, awesome experience!
Definitely Christmas Card-worthy!
Throughout the trip we had half a dozen card-carrying naturalists driving the Zodiacs and leading the excursions for WindStar, and each afternoon while on the ship they held lectures on various topics germane to the Alaska wilderness, like a deep dive on humpbacks and their migration and "learned behaviors" which come in to focus later on the trip. We found it refreshing that the naturalists driving our Zodiac was just as excited as we were to be that close to the glacier face and watching for calving.
We looked it up later because we saw a small Cessna nose down on a beach near the glacier face and it was a crash earlier in June that could not be recovered, at least immediately, so we assume it could be a permanent feature. According to the NPS website, no injuries were reported from the crash, and the NPS was working with the plane's owner to remove the plane...good luck with that!
In what was a highlight day of the trip, we encountered many otters and seals lounging on the ice floes coming off the glacier, minke whales, Dall's porpoises, tufted puffins, and jelly fish. For the rest of the day we hung out on the bow deck with a couple of naturalists pointing out the wildlife and geology/geology as we moved out of the fjord. We logged a lot of bow-time with that crew of naturalists.
Saturday, July 1, we were docked in Seward which was the turn-around point of the trip: the northbound passengers headed to Anchorage for flights and the new southbound passengers boarded. Since we were doing both legs, we walked in to the town Walking along the shoreline, we passed a couple of RV parks and headed in to the downtown strip after passing "Mile 0" of the Iditerold Sled Race. We had lunch on their downtown 4th Street in a restaurant that was run by Jamaicans (in Alaska?!?) where I had reindeer meatloaf and mac-n-cheese.
After lunch we wandered back and checked out some of the boats docked in the harbor with fish being hauled in to the seafood processors and then on to the Seward train station of the Alaska Railroad. Beautiful old-school train coaches teased us to consider another trip up here to Anchorage and to see Denali by train.
Now that's what I call fresh!
Nice, warmish weather, good for dockside schnacks!
On the fifth of July, we docked at Icy Strait Point and it seemed more "cruise ship" focused as there was a gondola that crossed from the pier (one big ass ship was already there) over to the Hoonah Cannery which had restaurants, gift shops and a small museum showing the "cannery lifestyle" back in the day. A bit more touristy, but we had some grand whale watching as we came down the strait: we followed an adult pair for 30 - 45 minutes as they crossed the strait; a mom was out teaching her juvenile how to breach...he didn't get much height to his jumps yet.
From Icy Point we sailed the next day in to Endicott Arm and anchored at the Dawes Glacier face for more glacier antics with dramatic mountains rising up either side with waterfalls, all on a crystal clear day, with the temps staying in the 50s and 60s. We left Endicott Arm and docked back in Haines for the night, which led to the next day and another awesome day on the trip.
Today (the 7th) was our trip to Skagway to take the White Pass and Yulon Railway. Rather than sail in to Skagway, we caught the Alaska State Ferry from Haines to Skagway, which was a good move as there were FOUR massive cruise ships crammed in to the harbor. Our groups were split in two: one group boarded the train to head up to White Pass and we were (disappointedly) sent to a bus, which actually turned out to be a great thing. Our driver was a retired NPS ranger who told us all sorts of good stuff as we drove up to White Pass. The excellent "lecture" in the bus, as well as the visit to the Skagway NPS visitors' center later painted a rather bleak picture of the history of the Alaskan Gold Rush and Skagway itself.
Getting close to White Pass and the border with Canada.
After driving up to the pass along with all the other tour busses, the train made its way to the pass and the outbound passengers transferred to the busses and we got on our designated WindStar coach for the trip down the pass back to Skagway. As bit of a touristy jaunt, but the trip down to Skagway, with the railbed largely following the one gold rush trail in to the interior for those seeking fame and fortune, and the learning from our bus driver hit home...largely unprepared and poorly provisioned gold seekers rushed to Skagway and struggled up the one trail to stake out claims (should they survive) in Alaska's hostile interior. Pack animals that died along the trail were just left; men that died met a similar fate.
I have a lot of videos from this excursion, but the Google Blogger is making posting them difficult, but you get the drift...rolling along through incredible landscapes in old-school coaches realizing what gold fever did to men back then was educational. A bit touristy, but educational.
Once back in Skagway, we walked around the Disney'fied town; because of the cruise traffic, the streets were mobbed with families seeking food and ice cream. It was cool that the downtown area Gold Rush-era buildings had been preserved, but still rather cheesy with junk shops. Hoping to avoid the crowds at the pizza and ice cream joints, we found an Indian restaurant that was still surprisingly busy. After lunch we hit the NPS visitors' center and got further educated on the gold rush. Later we rode the ferry back to Haines, where we stopped by the Port Chilkoot Distillery to hang and have a nip. Yet another great day on the trip of many great days, with more to come.
On the 8th, we were back in Juneau, and had a much different, and awesome day, from the first visit on the northbound leg. We were bussed up to hike out to the Mendenhall Glacier, led by a local tour guide. The Mendenhall Glacier released a "glacier lake flood" just this last summer (2024)--look it up! After the hike, we were bussed over to our whale watching boat, where all the side windows latched up so you had completely unobstructed camera and phone views as we headed out.
In a lecture earlier, we were shown the "learned" behavior of bubble feeding by the humpbacks, where up to a dozen whales cooperate to feed. One female coordinates the group once a school worthy of eating is located, and she gathers the group in a ring where they blow bubbles to scare the fish in to a tighter and tighter circle, and on her command, the group bursts in to the circle with mouths open to feed as they break the surface. Evidently it's not commonly seen, but that day we witnessed at least a half dozen bubble feedings as the boats communicated the excitement even among the captains and tour guides. And, our day's guide had a binder with pictures of whale flukes, which are as unique as fingerprints, and she spent a lot of the trip back looking at people's pictures, and proclaiming "there's Cornucopia!" looking at one of Janet's pictures, "we haven't seen Cornucopia yet this year...fantastic!"
Bubble Feeding in action: several whales breaking the surface with their mouths agape, scooping up the smaller feeder fish.
Back at the dock, we got to see several bald eagles, and juveniles, perched on the light standards, just hanging out. Definitely the best whale day of the trip with perfectly sunny weather to witness it all.
On the 9th, we were in Petersburg where we went on a nature walk loop on our own, and then ran in to Conrad, one of our naturalists, who then showed us many of the marshland plants as we walked along. We also caught sight of several bald eagles as well.
The hands of Conrad, from Homer, AK
Bald Eagles were everywhere, almost like crows around here
On the 10th, we returned to Wrangell and got a different view of the town from the first visit, as we followed the "John Muir Trail" up to the top of Dewey Mountain where we had only the second encounter of the infamous Alaskan skeeters once we were in the forest, and I assume out of the wind flow that kept them at bay. We then hiked along to their petroglyph beach before having a jet fueled mocha at the dock.
I wondered what he's looking at
We had an early 2pm departure from Wrangell, which turned out to be our last Alaskan stop. In our afternoon lecture as we headed south, Don Kluting, one of our naturalists along with his wife Denise Turley, regaled us with a couple of stories of of his days in the Sitka Search and Rescue--harrowing stuff tossing in with the extreme climate that he worked in. He's a good follow in InstaGram: @donkluting as he is an accomplished photographer as well as an overall interesting dude. He and Denise still live in Sitka and Conrad Field lives in Homer when they are not all showing the likes of us around.
The next day we made a brief stop in Prince Rupert, BC...we walked around to some nice public gardens, scored a doughnut (Canadian Maple) and coffee at a Tom Horton's, but it was a bit of a run-down city with a lot of empty storefronts...maybe still a Covid hangover...we caught the last tender (1:30) and set sail again for the last leg back to Vancouver.
We hoped to get our first Orca sighting in the straits back to Vancouver (as rumored) but all we saw (actually heard the kiddie screams first) was a ship, based on the noise, that we assumed was a Disney cruise, and wouldn't you know it, the Mickey logo on the stacks identified it as such. Can you imagine spending a week on that?!? We arrived back in Vancouver the next day, July 12th, and took a later afternoon flight back home, as we were gone from June 20th to July 12th. We spent a good chunk of those last two days in the bow, chatting it up with the naturalists who were up there scanning the waters if they weren't delivering a lecture. An excellent group on an incredible trip, bubble-feeding and all!
Of all the time we spent in the bow, I only saw one old dude use the hot tub
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