Alaskan Dreaming: Dream Cruise (a Preview)
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A confluence of opportunities finally allowed us to take an Alaskan Dream Cruise, after years of considering it. The tour company is an offshoot of Allen Marine, the pioneering Alaska boat builder and cruise operator. It offers eight-day small-ship cruises in Southeast Alaska on four different vessels. Our boat was the Alaskan Dream, a 104-foot catamaran that can host up to 40 people.
The cruise was fantastic. Later posts will discuss and show exactly why, but for the moment, this limited image preview gives an idea what is coming, and why the trip was so rewarding.
The ship:
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The Alaska Dream, on the very first evening, moored at the Orca Point Lodge dock on Colt Island for a s'mores beach party.
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The master, Erick Morrow, has run the Alaskan Dream for 15 years. Super-neat and capable.
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Wildlife sampler pack:
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Cultural treasures:
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Small communities (here, Pelican, with the Alaska Dream, moored):
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Assemblages: local art, intentional or not:
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Stunning walks and trails (here, Glacier Bay National Park):
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Random visions of beauty (reflection, distorted by our wake, of sky and glacier in Glacier Bay):
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Fanciful ice sculptures (here, possible sea-horse? or blue Poodle?):
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Serious ice: detail of Dawes Glacier face in Endicott Arm; it is probably 150 feet from water level to the point at the top of the photo; the actual face is higher than depicted here.
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Vastness, personified. Endicott Arm, Dawes Glacier, and 6000-foot peaks render the 936-foot cruise ship Westerdam insignificant.
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The photos below give a sense of scale. In the first, the 78-foot tour boat (the St. Herman, another Allen Marine boat) is at least half a mile from the face of Dawes Glacier. The face is easily three or four or more boat-lengths high. In the second photo below, there is a wave caused by calving ice at the base of the ice "arch." The third photo is a big enlargement of the second, and it shows, silhouetted but barely visible against the white wave, the outstretched wings of a big gull. Go back to the second (original) image to see how tiny the gull is compared to the face. The gull's wing-span suggests the top of the arch is 50-70 feet above the water level.
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Moving ice: Dawes Glacier calving in Endicott Arm
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Mt. St Elias, 18,009 feet, looms above Glacier Bay.
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Atmospherics:
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More to come. We'll start with the boat.
Comments
After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.