Capturing the Moment

  Peaking through an iceberg at my kayak group near Meares Glacier in Prince William Sound. Kayaking around glaciers is one of my favorite things. This morning I led a small kayaking group from the mothership, anchored about a mile and a half away from the face of Meares glacier. This is a rare glacier in that it is slowly advancing, bulldozing its way through the Alaskan rainforest. Almost all other glaciers here are retreating. It can be a very active glacier, dropping huge chunks of ice off the face into the fjord waters below. This is what I wanted to explore today. I set off with a group of four other adventurous kayakers to see what beauty we would find. None of us expected it to be quite as beautiful as it was. Pristine conditions for kayaking this morning at Meares Glacier in Unakwik Fjord. The waters were flat calm. It was almost like paddling on a mirror. I led our group into thick brash ice as we crossed the fjord to check out some waterfalls on the far side. The kayaks ...

  Columbia Glacier, as Good as it Gets. 3 MIN READ 421 WORDS Reflection in the Water. View of the Columbia Glacier. After several days of rain and cold, we scored the perfect weather for our trip up the Columbia fjord to the famous Columbia Glacier. We had blue sky and sunshine, plus mirror-like conditions on the water. The jagged mountains, the glacier itself, and the thousands of icebergs all casts reflections in the water. It was a photographers delight. After breakfast we loaded up our skiffs and worked our way to the face of the glacier, often just taking in the scenery in silence, soaking it all up. Since we had the entire fjord to ourselves, the only noise we would hear was the glacier talking to us in creaks and groans, and thunderous roars. We saw several calvings, creating loud booms when the ice chunks hit the water. Guests heading out in the skiffs from the mother ship. The Columbia Glacier, located in Prince William Sound, Alaska, is one of the most significant and rap...

  Over the last fifty days I have been implementing an expedition style program on one of Silversea's classic fleet ships called the Silver Muse. It can hold around 600 passengers and is far and away the largest ship I've ever worked on. Figuring out the logistics of where the expedition equipment would go, like all of the zodiacs and kayaks, and other gear was only one of the many challenges that my team and I faced with this assignment.    Now that we are all packed up and can relish in the success I can finally look back at the few times I did get off the ship for some pretty fabulous adventures in Alaska. When the ship was in port, and not all the expedition team was needed for our excursions, I would try to send the team out as escorts on shore based trips. This was one of my favorites.   On one rainy day in Juneau I watched the poor shore concierge team as flight after flight of sightseeing helicopters postponed and outright canceled. There was a lot of...

  In awe of the glacial blue   It is the middle of summer which means Alaska is heating up, both in temperature and in wildlife sightings. And with all the kids being on summer vacation it is a great time to expand their world view with a trip to the Alaska wilderness. The Safari Quest is our smallest vessel in the fleet, with 22 passengers and 10 crew, making it perfect for an extended family vacation. The last three weeks have all been private family charters on the Quest. Not only has it been amazing to see families spending such amazing quality time together, but getting the kids unplugged from wifi and internet means the wilderness experience can really take hold.    Exploration Time   This week we had 9 kids on ranging from 17 to 5 years old. The activities ranged from bushwhacking past piles of bear scat, skiffing up rivers into glacial lakes, to kayaking around ice while watching a tidewater glacier calve into the water. Each activity p...