Glorious Glacier Bay

WOW! It’s hard to describe our day cruising through Glacier Bay National Park. The weather was gorgeous; from what we were told, we really lucked out because lately they’ve had rain nearly every day. Around 8:00am, it did not look very promising and we thought the forecast of ‘cloudy with a chance of rain’ was going to be accurate. See how low the clouds were?

Fortunately, the clouds lifted quickly and just ten minutes later, this is what it looked like.

It only got better after that! The ship sailed very slowly for approximately 9 hours through Glacier Bay, a distance of 65 miles from the park entrance to the Margerie Glacier at the far end of the bay. Since it’s a national park, there are restrictions on the number of vessels that may enter; a maximum of 2 cruise ships allowed on any given day. Smaller boats are also restricted. This makes the experience so much more enjoyable and peaceful. We were able to get to within a quarter mile of the Margerie Glacier, where we idled for over an hour to give everyone on all sides of the ship ample time for viewing. As we approached the glacier, this is what we saw:

First, we went to one of the open decks on the front of the ship.

This shot, from a different angle, shows some of the upper part of the glacier (right in the middle of the photo).

When we observed the Johns Hopkins Glacier, we had to stay 5 miles away so we wouldn’t disturb the harbor seals who are having their pups on the ice in front of the glacier. Look above Bill’s left shoulder to see the glacier in the distance.

One of my goals on this trip was to see the calving of a glacier, which is when a big chunk falls into the water with a thunderous sound and a huge splash. As we passed by the Lamplugh Glacier, I got my wish! I couldn’t react fast enough to get a picture, but here’s the Lamplugh.

Besides the beauty of the scenery, we were treated to some wildlife sightings in Glacier Bay. Unfortunately for one reason or another, we didn’t get any photos! We saw three grizzlies wandering along the shoreline. Verne and Peggy (and a bunch of others) saw some bears feasting on a beached whale carcass! Bill & I are really sorry we missed that. We saw several humpback whales, lots of sea otters and a few harbor seals.

And just a few minutes ago, as I’m writing this after leaving Haines, Bill called me over to the balcony where he spotted an orca! It even breached for us twice – soooo exciting!