Phillips 26 Glacier Tour

Before we left home, we had considered booking a 5-hour 26 glacier small boat tour, but wanted to wait until we saw what the weather was like before committing to it. Well, the weather was perfect, so at 12:30pm we boarded the Klondike Express docked right next to the Island Princess. The boat was a high speed catamaran that held 300 people, but there were less than half of that on it today, and we cruised all around Prince William Sound, into College Fjord a bit, but particularly into Harriman Fjord to see its eight glaciers.

Almost right away we saw humpback whales spouting and diving, harbor seals, Stellar sea lions and sea otters. The glaciers came fast and furious and we stopped in front of several of them so we could hear the sounds of their advance into the water. The glaciers creak and groan every step of the way, and we were rewarded by seeing the them calve time and again.

In front of Surprise Glacier, two members of the boat's crew used a large net to pick up some of the small pieces of ice floating all around us. They then proceeded to make Glacier Margaritas with chunks of 150 year old ice in them. Of course, I had to have one. It's not every day that I get a margarita made from a glacier.