Our Cruise, Seward to Vancouver, started and ended with a day at sea. On the Alaska end, we stayed close to the coast and visited a fantastic glacier in a small fjord. A little further south, we began to wind in-and-out of small islands and coastal fjords. The towns visited were built, in part, because of deeper water ports for sea access. In some instances, sea accessibility was absolutely necessary for the town’s survival. Winding between the mainland and these small islands is officially known as “The Inside Passage.” Unofficially, the Cruise definition is mainland on one side and islands on the other. On the Atlantic Coast, we have the Intercoastal Waterway… On the Pacific, ships hide inside the narrow passages between the mainland and coastal islands to sail in calmer waters, from Washington State to Southern Alaska.
For our cruise, the Inside Passage began north of Vancouver Island as we sailed south. The picture above was taken of the entrance to this passage. For the next seven hours, we steered, with the help of local Canadian pilots, through channels that became quite narrow. These waters are a summer playground for whales, which were the main focus of my ship mates. I, on the other hand, could not watch enough of the beautiful British Columbian coastlines…all 25,000 miles of it !!
So I’ll leave my writing about this cruise by sitting back, once again, and loading more photos of this gorgeous stretch of water:
The Adventures of Barry Brink 