Hello Burt,
Thank you so verry much about you experience going to Alaska on a smaler
boat.It sounds right for birders to choose this kind of trip,this to see as
much of wildlife as possible,as Alaska is still one of the most untouched
state in the united states.Also where most birds migrate to breed in
Alaska.This would be a trip i would choose.

Ruth Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net
Tacoma
----- Original Message -----
From: Guttman, Burt <GuttmanB at evergreen.edu>
To: <me2 at u.washington.edu>; Tweeters News Group <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 8:48 AM
Subject: RE: Cruise Ship birding inquiry......


> Maureen Ellis's request for help for her cruise in southwest Alaska
prompt's
> me to provide some free advice. My wife and I did a two-week tour of
Alaska
> last summer, the highlight being the same kind of trip that Maureen
> describes through the sounds and straits and inlets of the southwest.
> However, instead of going on one of the huge ships that you commonly see
> advertised, we went on a CruiseWest ship, a wonderful small boat with only
> about 100 passengers. I can't recommend it too strongly. The huge ships
> (and, boy, they really are huge, as you see when they are tied up in port)
> come complete with all the amenities of urban living, but sitting on the
> water instead of in the heart of New York or Seattle. The CruiseWest
boats,
> in contrast, are very informal and are geared toward getting close to the
> natural world. Their small boats are able to go into narrow passages and
> get you close to the wildlife you want to see; they have staff who are
> interested in the wildlife and try to get you into places where you can
> really see it, and they take local naturalists on board for parts of their
> cruise, so you can talk to them, get help in identification, and have the
> kind of conversations that most of us really want to engage in. One of
> these naturalists told us about going onto one of the huge ships, where he
> was up on a stage talking to a big crowd of people as if he were just part
> of their entertainment, when suddenly everyone started to get up to leave;
> someone explained to him that it was time for some fancy dessert. That
was
> just a joke to the people on our boat; even though we had comfortable
> quarters and were fed well, we were all primarily interested in really
> seeing Alaska and its birds and mammals, and we were able to see a lot.
It
> was a very satisfying trip, and I highly recommend it. I do have to add
one
> negative note. Part of the tour was spending a couple of days in Denali
> National Park, where you go through the area on buses. Now, the bus
drivers
> are very nice and quite knowledgeable, but they are almost exclusively
> interested in showing you the large mammals, especially bears--and we did
> see a lot of them. But few of them, I was told, know much about birds,
and
> unfortunately we got a driver who didn't know much about birds and didn't
> make any special effort to see birds, even though I sat right behind him
and
> made it clear that that was one of my main interests. So you can't expect
> to do much serious birding on your standard tour through Denali. But
> otherwise we had a great time, and we really feel that we saw Alaska well,
> including the native culture. You'll still have to arrange a special
> birding trip to see everything, but you'll find the small boats are
> excellent for seeing many of the water birds in the southwest island area.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Burt Guttman
> The Evergreen State College 360-867-6755
> Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
>
> Reunite Gondwana
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Maureen Ellis [mailto:me2 at u.washington.edu]
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 10:20 AM
> > To: Tweeters News Group
> > Subject: Cruise Ship birding inquiry......
> >
> >
> > Folks,
> > In mid-Sept, I'll be taking a family trip on an inside-passage Alaska
> > cruise (round-trip from/to Vancouver, B.C.) I expect to be
> > doing a fair
> > amount of birdwatching from the ship's stern (bow is much too
> > windy, I'm
> > told) expecting to see a number of seabird species, all
> > mostly life birds
> > for me, including, hopefully, albatrosses. I'll be taking my
> > 3rd edition
> > Nat Geo Guide plus considering Sibley's guide and even the venerable
> > "Seabirds of Great Britain and the World" by Captain
> > 'forget-his-name.'
> > Is there an Alaska specialty bird guide that would be useful to take
> > covering most all I might see? There will be three port
> > stops (Ketchikan,
> > Juneau and Skagway) that might also allow some beach perusing for
> > shorebirds (Dennis Paulson's guide?) and also a few hours of
> > inland forest
> > birding.
> >
> > The ship (a Holland-America cruise) does have a library that
> > may have a
> > number of bird and wildlife books, but I need to have one or
> > two of my own
> > on deck while birding. This is my first trip to Alaska or
> > anywhere this
> > far up the West Coast. While, this is not a bird-focus tour, the ship
> > is slow-cruising a day in the Glacier Bay area for ice scenery and
> > wildlife viewing, particularly, whales. Naturally, I'm very
> > excited and
> > expecting seeing a bunch of wonderful things on this trip.
> >
> > Any information or suggestions, especially from others who
> > have also done
> > cruise ship birding up the B.C.-Alaska coast is most appreciated.
> >
> > Cheers & Thanks, Maureen
> > ****************************************
> > Maureen Ellis, PhD, Research Scientist
> > Toxicology Group at Roos 1, 284A
> > Lab/Office phone: 206-685-1938
> > Dept of Environmental Health, Mailstop 354695
> > School of Public Health and Community Medicine
> > University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98115
> >
> > Personal Financial Representative
> > Primerica division of Citigroup, Inc.
> > VoiceTell: 206-213-7430
> >
> > E-Mail: me2 at u.washington.edu
> > ****************************************
> > "Why are we now traveling into space? Why, indeed, did we
> > trouble to look
> > past the next mountain? Our prime obligation to ourselves is
> > to make the
> > unknown known. We are on a journey to keep an appointment
> > with whatever
> > we are."_____Gene Roddenberry
> >
> >
> >