Petersburg/Le Conte Bay
The names themselves are enough to inspire dreams – Spicy Lady and Defiant, Tiffany Rose and Sea Fury. We wake as the Sea Bird maneuvers into its dockage at Petersburg, sliding in at the South Harbor among the town’s fleet of working fishing boats. This is the real Alaska, rough-edged and barnacled. Petersburg’s wind- and- wave-weathered waterfront, the slap of rubber boots on the docks, the smell of sea salt and fish, the grumble of a diesel engine as another salmon boat heads out to the fishing grounds, marks the town as a slice of the true Alaska, a peek behind the postcard.
We go beyond the postcard scenery again with a bog walk across the bay from the town. The wooden boardwalk winds through a world of carnivorous plants (sundew) and bunchberry, tufts of moss and thimbleberry. Guest chose the hike of their own pace (fast, medium, or slow) as the ship’s naturalist crew leads us through a green-tinged hike of patterned ferns, and the flute-like calls of the hermit thrush.
With the thrush’s song still ringing in our ears, guests take off with flights over the LeConte Glacier in a floatplane or a helicopter, changing their focus again to take in the kaleidoscope of ice and the candy-blue melt pools atop the glacial surface. As the flights come back to earth, the Sea Bird slips its dock to dodge in among the icebergs of LeConte Glacier. The bergs, like shards of fallen stars, are electric blue, the color of water in dreams and in the silence we listen closely to the soft “bergy seltzer” sounds of icebergs melting slowly in the sun.
Then, the Sea Bird steams on, the sun setting red in the distance. The dreams tonight will be of icebergs, of bird calls and float planes, of adventure on boats with names like Commander and Karluk, Arctic Queen, and now, the Sea Bird.
The names themselves are enough to inspire dreams – Spicy Lady and Defiant, Tiffany Rose and Sea Fury. We wake as the Sea Bird maneuvers into its dockage at Petersburg, sliding in at the South Harbor among the town’s fleet of working fishing boats. This is the real Alaska, rough-edged and barnacled. Petersburg’s wind- and- wave-weathered waterfront, the slap of rubber boots on the docks, the smell of sea salt and fish, the grumble of a diesel engine as another salmon boat heads out to the fishing grounds, marks the town as a slice of the true Alaska, a peek behind the postcard.
We go beyond the postcard scenery again with a bog walk across the bay from the town. The wooden boardwalk winds through a world of carnivorous plants (sundew) and bunchberry, tufts of moss and thimbleberry. Guest chose the hike of their own pace (fast, medium, or slow) as the ship’s naturalist crew leads us through a green-tinged hike of patterned ferns, and the flute-like calls of the hermit thrush.
With the thrush’s song still ringing in our ears, guests take off with flights over the LeConte Glacier in a floatplane or a helicopter, changing their focus again to take in the kaleidoscope of ice and the candy-blue melt pools atop the glacial surface. As the flights come back to earth, the Sea Bird slips its dock to dodge in among the icebergs of LeConte Glacier. The bergs, like shards of fallen stars, are electric blue, the color of water in dreams and in the silence we listen closely to the soft “bergy seltzer” sounds of icebergs melting slowly in the sun.
Then, the Sea Bird steams on, the sun setting red in the distance. The dreams tonight will be of icebergs, of bird calls and float planes, of adventure on boats with names like Commander and Karluk, Arctic Queen, and now, the Sea Bird.
