Leaving the stunning Portage Glacier and its pristine lake still frozen in April, we headed for the tunnel to Whittier in ‘Ernie’, the fastest RV in the North.

Whittier is the gateway to Prince William Sound, but is only accessible by sea or through the one-way tunnel blasted from the rock for freight, through which you have to time your passage.

We caught the last West – East tunnel run, with no possibility to get back through that night. We found ourselves stuck in a near-deserted, oily little freight terminal quite different from the cruise-ship tourist town we had imagined. The only reason to visit Whittier is to take a boat straight out of there, but that proved more difficult than it sounds.

After finding every glacier cruise company closed until May, and the only available ferries a four-day round trip to Juneau, we were lucky to bump into Andrew doing some pre-season DIY on his rental shed. With just one little boat available, we persuaded him to let us charter it the following day for some glacier-watching and fishing.

As we lay awake in Ernie that night, harassed by the industrial thrum of trains and cranes, the Boyfriend and I agreed that freezing to death in the iceberg-strewn waters that claimed the Exxon Valdez would at least be quick, and that our story would have a certain drama. If we lived, there would be rum, and lots of it.

Feigning confidence, and fibbing just a little about our experience with boats, we hopped into the tiny craft ominously named the ‘Toy Boat’. What were we thinking?! The weather was grey with drizzle, and the water was no longer the millpond it had been the previous night. Given the conditions, and our new-found appreciation for rum, we stuck to the closest fjords; Blackstone and Cochrane.

Our depth-sounder showed no bottom to the fjords just minutes out of port, and ‘pinged’ constantly with schools of fish at massive depths – probably the giant halibut of fishing legend, which really are ‘THIS big’ [stretches arms wide].

The Boyfriend had jettisoned his trout-fishing gear in favour of Andrew’s giant rusty halibut hooks. Apparently, these fish can grow to over 300lbs, so I was relieved not to catch a thing! I had also seen the monstrous King Crab at dinner that week. Yikes.

As we neared the glaciers at the foot of Blackstone fjord – no longer calving into the sea but still blue and spectacular – ice began to float past the Toy Boat.

“ICEBERG!” I swerved out of the path of a small pointed berg and slammed the speed down to five knots. From there on in, we picked our way carefully through what are technically known (and I’m serious) as ‘bergy bits’ to the walls of the fjord.

After some fairly unsuccessful photography in the gloomy spring weather, we negotiated our way back out of the sea ice and with relief back into open water. We paused several times on our journey back to Whittier to watch sea otters playing in the driftwood, or thinking we had spotted some early bear on the clifftops. Colonies of Kittiwakes darted from their nests as the Sound slowly woke up from the winter.

We escaped from Whittier that night to the little ski town of Girdwood. We found the cosy pub, and we toasted our voyage with rum.