I am about to order dinner when I see it. Looking up from the menu to gaze at the Pacific Ocean through the window next to my table, I spot the flash of a fin through the waves. Moments later, an orca breaches the water completely, flipping in the air to reveal its white underbelly before
crashing into the sea, leaving me wondering if I have imagined the whole thing.
The ever-changing backdrop to life on board is what makes an Alaskan cruise one of the world’s most dramatic sea voyages. We’re sailing the Inside Passage, a 500-mile coastal waterway with sceneries of glaciers that flow alongside snow-capped mountains, glossy lakes, ice-carved fjords snaking through steep valleys, and dense pine forests that stop at the water’s edge.
Indigenous communities, including the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people, have lived on the remote banks here for centuries, surrounded by the 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest temperate rainforest. The route’s deep waters mean cruise ships are able to sail astonishingly close to the coast, making sightings of bald eagles perched on top of 1,000-year-old pines and even bears foraging for food on the shoreline entirely possible.
There are plenty of places to watch the world go by onboard the 458-passenger Seabourn Questduring its seven-night itinerary from Alaska’s capital Juneau to Vancouver. There are bubbling whirlpools, a glass-fronted observation deck serving afternoon tea and an outdoor poolside grill restaurant. I eat there on even the chilliest days under a patio heater, so as not to miss a moment.
A Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) looks for her next meal while sitting in a tree in Prince William Sound, Alaska, USAShane Gross
Quest’s smaller size means it can navigate narrow fjords larger ships can’t access, docking in rarely visited fishing villages and isolated gold-rush-era towns. A small team of onboard expedition experts – identifiable in their cherry-red parkas – help bring each new destination to life. With backgrounds in geology, marine biology and ornithology, they are always on hand to help spot wildlife and to forge a deeper understanding of the passing landscape, pointing out porpoises, lighthouses and even copper-coloured streaks on rock faces that indicate the presence of gold.
