Scenic Cruising in Endicott Arm . . .

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Normally for myself and other crew who work on ships, days at sea are not exciting. They mean long and tiring days of work. But ever since I learned I’d be working on the Spirit and cruising Alaska, I’ve been looking forward to our scenic cruising days. My teen club is at the top of the ship at the front and one side is all windows. I normally keep the curtains closed because people walk outside on the deck and stare into the windows; it makes me feel like me and teens are animals at the zoo. But the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been waiting to have those curtains wide open to see the Alaskan scenery go by.

Today was our first official scenic cruising day. Our itinerary had us scheduled to cruise Tracy Arm. But due to icy conditions, our captain made the decision to sail Endicott Arm, a wider and easier to navigate waterway just south, instead.

It was beautiful! I had very few teens in the club, mostly I was by myself. It seemed that all of the guests were outside on the deck. It is early in the season, so it is cold outside, but everyone was bundled up and out to admire the view. What a view! On either side of the ship, mountains rose above us. Snow topped them. Towering evergreen trees grow all along their sides. The water is an incredible shade of green which doesn’t really sound pretty, but it is. The air is so fresh! Around every curve we’d see another waterfall cascading down the mountainsides. I was mostly glued to the window of my club staring outside and the couple of teens who were with me and I kept running out the emergency exit door to take pictures.

Then, mid afternoon, we reached the far end of the arm where we could go no further. A glacier was straight ahead. It was awesome. A huge river of ice just frozen before us. It was a deep blue that seemed to glow amongst the snow and mountains around it. Icebergs floated in the water all around us. I was so happy to have the binoculars that I purchased before Hawaii to look at the glacier more clearly! I took so many pictures.

To today was a very exciting and fascinating day at sea! I’m excited to have more of them.

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