Getting there wasn't easy. We flew from Tampa to Seattle to visit a friend there, overnighting at the Seattle Marriott near the airport for a morning flight that went through Vancouver to Prince Rupert, where the airport is on an island, necessitating a bus to a ferry, then a ferry ride to the Crest Motor Hotel for another overnight. The next morning after a tour of the city and the countryside, we finally boarded the yacht.

The passengers included a retired physician and his wife, two bankers, a social worker and massage therapist who were starting their own retreat, and a now rich man who had helped start a computer company in a garage and his wife, plus us as writer and photographer. The crew consisted of captain, mate, chef, naturalist, two waitresses who also took care of cabins, and a naturalist trainee.

The 105-foot Safari Spirit is very impressive vessel, with beautifully appointed state rooms and a richly furnished salon. Our cabin had twin beds, private bath with shower, individually controlled thermostat, a dressing table, chest of drawers, two hanging lockers, and plenty of room. There were windows, but high so they had no view. Our stateroom was very quiet. (The two aft cabins, closer to the engine, had some vibration and noise when the yacht was underway.) The most elegant staterooms were on the Bridge Deck with king-size bed and large sliding glass doors to a balcony.

It was indeed, as the brochures said, not like traveling on a big cruise ship, but like cruising in your own private yacht. In fact, I hung out at the helm station most of the time we were underway, getting the captain's eye of the voyage, following our course on the charts, and hearing stories of how whales migrate and the captain's and mate's experiences swimming with whales on research voyages. On two afternoons I even got to take the wheel for an hour or so.

The Safari Spirit was an intimate way to see the heart of Alaska st petersburg florida evening cruise Tours close and personal. We learned just how up close and personal on the first evening when we made our first exploring run in the ship's zodiac. We had arrived in Foggy Cove, which indeed it was, with mist rising all around, the water flat and still, and the scenery as serene as a Japanese painting. I was huddled behind the naturalist, shaking with cold (I had just come from Florida and was wondering why I hadn't worn long underwear and a full-length alpaca coat), when we saw the bear. It was a brown bear (you tell by the teddy-bear shape of the face and shoulder hump more than the color - black bears have a pointed face and no hump). It was grazing on grass in a flat meadow along the shore (bears eat mostly grass in the spring, eat salmon at spawning time in the fall). We shut off the outboard engine and quietly glided close to shore, watching the bear and the bear watching us. We sat entranced for quite a while, until the bear decided to check us out more closely and came out on a log just a few feet from us, at which point we quickly got out of there. We saw many bears on other days, but this one was special because it was our first, and it was so close.