Too Little Time in Hubbard Glacier

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It’s very much like a “Sea Day” today, in that there is no port of call or sanctioned opportunity to disembark, what they like to call a scenic viewing day, when you’re supposed to see something really spectacular! Our day started in the Lido where we were dismayed by the worsening weather and visibility and the possibility of another Tracey Arm washout loomed as an increasingly likely possibility. There is at least with Hubbard Glacier a very wide sea approach; so, except for the increasing brash ice and bergie bits bobbing in the water, there really is no “visibility hazard” such as the narrow meandering fjord on the approach to the glacier on Tracy Arm; or the side glacier that you sometimes get a glimpse of there, what is it they call it, oh yes: Some Dumb Glacier. By the time that we made it to the Explorer’s Lounge for our Sudoku Challenge, we could see that conditions were improving, and the view of the mountains ashore was coming into focus, and there was even some blue peeking through in the heavens above. Sharon has used the “pencil excuse” before, and on the previous cruise she used the “forgot my glasses” excuse. Today it was the “Sudoku cells are too small” excuse, and she chose not to finish the puzzle. And she says that my mother is the one for coming up with excuses; although, I can’t say that she’s not.

Sharon went to mass afterwards; while, I went back to the cabin. Today we had a before lunch Trivia Challenge and we went up early to save seats right in the front of the Crow’s Nest. Our teammates almost missed us up front, and we had to flag them down. We were all still reeling from yesterday’s debacle; although, we imagined we must still be near the top. Ross, the Cruise Director, enjoys tying themes together, sometimes within the same day’s trivia challenge, and sometimes from day to day. He was in top form today. Previously the question had been, in what year had Elvis died? (1977) Today the question was, “In what year was Elvis Presley born?” Our teammates started throwing out answers, but deferred to me when I wrote down the year he died and subtracted 42 from that and said probably 1935 (possibly 1934). But Leah claimed to know he died in August and was born in January, so 1935 it was. I had remembered from our trip to Graceland, that his mother had died early at 42, and Elvis always believed that he would be 42 when he would die; and, he was right. Most of the questions seemed pretty easy to us; although, the team that had won twice in the last three days faltered. We wound up in a 4-way tie and had to answer closest in miles: “How long is the longest mountain range in the world (the Andes from a previous challenge)?” Sharon guessed 3,500. Irene guessed 1,650. I guessed 4,000. We ended up going with Sharon’s answer which turned out less disheartening than going with mine! The other teams guessed 8,000, 6,500 and 5,000 miles. The answer was 4,501 and we’d have felt bad if we’d missed it by just a mile or two! Okay, we sort of felt bad anyway; but, at least the team that won had not won before.

We had lunch in the Lido cafeteria. I just got some pizza Sharon passed over several types of fish. I think our main lunch was ice cream afterwards. We stopped by the casino to play a bit. I was able to sit down in my preferred spot at first base. For the first time this cruise, I seemed to be getting a fairly favorable run of cards; or, at least I was frequently winning two or three hands in a row. I still had the problem losing in key situations where I double down or split hands, or worse, split and then double down. On this eight deck table the do allow doubling down on any two cards (e.g. after a split, except for aces). It is one of the rules that is a big advantage to the player. Club 21 aboard Holland America also has a single deck game, with very strict rules. Worst, they only pay blackjacks 6-to-5 on single deck versus the standard 3-to-2. The 3-to-2 payout is the biggest advantage to the player (who only loses his original bet should the dealer have a blackjack). Without this higher payout for blackjack, the player can’t win (on average), even if he’s Thorpe! And of course there is no doubling down after splitting on this game. And there are strict rules about when the dealer shuffles. With one player, the house must shuffle after the third hand. With two players, after the second hand, and with three or more players after every hand. I was lucky enough to get a modest winning streak, find myself up, and decided it was a good time to take a break for some scenic viewing.

The weather had cleared nicely and we had a high ceiling with many patches of blue with sunlight pouring through. The sunlight is a prerequisite for the ice to show its deep aqua and blue colors. Much of the ice in the water had already lost those blue hues to time and meltdown; but, on the cliffs of the glacier pushing into the sea vast walls of blue ice towering hundreds of feet above the sea could be seen. A couple of times our vessel came in contact with some larger chunks of brash ice, that made the entire vessel shudder for just a moment. One can only imagine what an impact of coming in contact with a ship-size hunk of ice. Hubbard Glacier is a tidewater glacier with its face reaching the sea. The wall face above the water is supported by a submerged face extending hundreds of feet downward as well. We’d spotted several hanging glaciers in the surrounding mountains, which had once extended to the sea in the U-shaped valleys they’ve carved out in their retreat from the sea. But Hubbard Glacier is not retreating; rather, it is advancing about 85 feet per year, one of about 10% of all glaciers that are not retreating. Sharon saw part of the face calve into the water, and splashing in the deep blue-green ocean. We switched from port side to starboard for better viewing and back again, as the ship maneuvered to provide viewing from all sides. Our journey to Hubbard Glacier was witnessed by another smaller cruise ship who sped up and caught us and then sped ahead for a closer view of the glacier, lingering there in front of us and dwarfed by the ice wall that served for us as a backdrop and reference frame of the largeness of the ice. But just as quickly as we’d arrived, the captain turned the ship around and we headed back out to sea, heading for Sitka Alaska our port of call in the morning. Our memories from our previous 2-week cruise that included Hubbard Glacier was that the ship lingered for quite some time and rotated more than once for our viewing pleasure. This one was more of a “You Snooze, You Lose” scenic viewing.

For dinner we were seated in the center island. We sat with a couple who lived alternately in New Zealand and Washington State. Their home in New Zealand was still recovering from the earthquake, with repairs still needed on the garage. They had a story not dissimilar from ours, getting married later in life; although, in their case both of them had been married before. One of their children had not fared as well in the earthquake. They had decided to tear down their existing home and rebuild a newer home. The earthquake occurred after they had poured the foundation, completely demolishing that. Because there was no actual house that was damaged or covered by insurance, they did not qualify for government subsidies helping homeowners rebuild. I had the creamy vegetable soup and bay shrimp cocktail and chose the very tasty Indonesian curry vegetable dish. Sharon went with the brisket and we both had the coffee Baked Alaska for dessert.

We found a choice front row seat on the Upper Promenade. The show featured Don McEnery, who is an Emmy nominated writer for an episode of Seinfeld, and co-writer of Pixar’s A Bug’s Story. He tours as a standup comic. He was promoted by Ross as a “family-friendly” comic, and from his credentials you would assume that to be the case; however, his headline show (and we went to the first show likely to have some of the younger Statendam passengers in attendance) was in many cases not funny and at times anything but “family-friendly”. After one off-color joke, he stepped aside and “spoke to the kids in the audience” to offer a double entendre term he had used to try and make it G-rated. There are comics that can pull off jokes about a Catholic education; which, he claimed to have although noting that he himself was not Catholic. From is lengthy mean-spirited anti-Catholic segue I don’t think any of us had any question about that. We weren’t the only ones evidently that had misgivings about this comic, at one point launching a ridicule of nuns. I don’t know if he knew that there were two nuns onboard, I’m just saying. I saw over a dozen people get up and walk out of this show, something that almost never happens.



We stopped in the casino after the show, and I played for a short while, and for once had fairly decent cards. Sharon got some good action on her fisherman slots and doubled her $20 stake. When she dropped by the table, I decided to return to the cabin with her and call it a night.

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