Prince William Sound - Sea Canoeing

I flew to Alaska a couple of weeks before Alan's Wedding to do a mixture of canoeing and tramping with him. Our first trip was sea canoeing in Prince William Sound.




Just getting to the launching point at the town of Whittier is an experience. It is accessed by single lane road tunnel which has 15 minute traffic flow in each direction. The railway also shares this tunnel with the road. The town itself is very small, we were surprised to find snow down to sea level here, as even in the Alaskan Interior most of it had already gone.



We set out down the Passage Canal in pretty calm conditions and paddled about three hours on the first day, passing Shotgun Cove, where as the name suggests, we were blasted by gusts of winds coming over from the next bay. We camped at Decision Point the first night, being the weekend there were a number of other groups there, including an instructor who seemed somewhat concerned that we had an open canoe in a "Marine Salt Water Environment"





The sea was flat calm the next day and we rounded the point and headed in to Blackstone Bay to have a look at some calving sea level glaciers. This was a big day and it was afternoon by the time we reached them. This area is truly spectacular. We messed around on the edge of the "pack ice" for a bit being careful not to get too close to the ice bergs that kept turning over as they melted. A capsize in Prince William Sound would be very serious as the water temperature was only a couple of degrees above freezing.











We headed back towards Decision Point, but stopped short and camped at a delightful knoll by a small beach. We had views right down to the glaciers and as it doesn't really get dark here at this time of year, we could sit and watch them in beautiful light.



The third day we headed back to Shotgun cove and camped. In the afternoon we took a short walk climbing to the saddle above the cove to look back over in to Blackstone. There were fresh bear prints here too.



The final day was short and the weather had started to deteriorate. There was just enough chop to make it interesting as we canoed back to the town for a fish and chips lunch, before setting off along the Seward highway for Denali.