Capturing the Moment

  View from the drone, high above our ship's anchorage on our first morning at Tiger Glacier. It feels good to be back in Alaska. After traveling through the night we felt our first piece of ice scraping down the hole before breakfast. We slowed down and pulled into a nice anchorage, a few miles from Tiger Glacier, in Icy Bay. This was Day 1 on our Prince William Sound itinerary on the Safari Explorer. While the guests were in breakfast, I sent up my drone for a few shots of our boat and the surrounding beauty. We spent the morning taking our small boats through the fjords and up to the glacier. A few giant slabs of ice calved off the face of the glacier. We rode up and down on the waves created by the icefall. I ended up picking up some of this floating ice so the guests could see it up close. We had sea otters with pups and harbor seals hauled out on the ice flows. A black bear was even spotted going in and out of the bushes, high above us on the forest covered cliffs. The advent...

  All this ice is not going to be easy to get through, but we've gotta get closer to the glacier, so here we go! Stuck in the ice, and loving it, at Chenega Glacier. Chenega Glacier is located in Nassau Fjord, towards the southwest corner of Prince William Sound in Alaska. The closest port is Whittier, but we arrived from Seward after driving through the night. Because of its remote location, we don't usually see any other boats while we are here. Today was the same, as we had the whole fjord to ourselves. We also had perfect kayaking conditions, with not a drop of wind. We even had sun shining down, which made up for the otherwise frigid temperature outside. Today I led a guided kayak, from the back deck of the Safari Explorer towards the glacier face. Along the way we stopped for beautiful harlequin ducks, waterfalls, and mountains goats. But the real draw was a massive tidewater glacier. Chenega Glacier is one of the most active glaciers we go to here in Prince William Sound...

  View from the skiff of the adventurous hikers, breaking new ground and looking just epic. One of the best parts of expedition cruising is the flexibility to discover new adventures and to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Today was one of those days. I took out a fun contingent of guests for a glacial skiff tour. We started off with a beautiful waterfall, and then were shocked by a mountain goat mom with a tiny kid, only thirty feet above us. Usually when I see mountain goats they are hundreds, or even thousands of feet high. They appear as little dots of off-white amongst the cliffs. Today was one of the closest, and most intimate encounters in my nine years of guiding here in Alaska. Wild mountain goats on the almost sheer side of the thousand foot cliffs. Next we drove into a cave, just because we could. The high tide definitely helped, and the photos turned out pretty cool. Deep inside a cave. I always think back to my days on the tall ship Tole Mour, d...