Whale, porpoise, river and sea otter, sea lion, eagles, puffins and bear in the beautiful surroundings of calving glaciers, fjords, snow fields and rocky coastlines. Enjoy locally caught seafood for dinner. Go ashore for a hike or to explore a stream full of spawning salmon. Kayak in safe and sheltered waters.
Get away from the mainstream of visitors in Alaska and experience the uniqueness of a Prince William Sound Cruise. The geography and range of wildlife and marine life in the Sound is so incredibly diverse that each of our charters is essentially personalized. Our charters range from day trips to multi-day explorations.
Get away from the mainstream of visitors in Alaska and experience the uniqueness of a Prince William Sound Cruise. The geography and range of wildlife and marine life in the Sound is so incredibly diverse that each of our charters is essentially personalized. Our charters range from day trips to multi-day explorations.
Services
Babkin Charters is owned and operated by the von Wichman family and have been running boats in Prince William Sound, Alaska, since the early 1970's. Brother and sister team Brad and Alex von Wichman have decades of experience and know the locations and conditions that make the sound such a amazing place to explore.
Both our vessels, The Alexandra and The Babkin, are of solid fiberglass construction, diesel powered and have 110 volt generators for video and computer systems. The Alexandra and Babkin meet all United States Coast Guard safety requirements and our captains are United States Coast Guard licensed. Babkin Charters operates on Chugach Forest Lands under permit from the USDA Forest Service.
Our experience with oil spill cleanup and prevention began with the EXXON Valdez spill in 1989. Initially we worked with SCAT, (Shoreline Cleanup and Asessment Team), within Prince William Sound. Later we had a fate and persistence group aboard which followed the path of the spill and conducted site characteristics on beaches that would not be cleaned by man.
We've been commercial fishing in Alaska since the 1970's. It started in an open, 21 foot boat which had a depth finder that reached 100 feet. Someone had told us that the shrimp were down around 600 feet so we picked a spot on the chart that looked to be the right depth and kept tying on the line until the pots hit the bottom.
Vitus Bering's Russian expedition of 1741 opened Prince William Sound to the western world. Subsequent expeditions by Spanish, British and the Spanish have all contributed to the naming of numerous bays and islands. Fur, gold, timber and fish have all fueled economic booms in the sound which has now become a major port for the shipment of Alaskan oil.
