Day 14 Glacier Bay

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Day 14

19/05/2019

Glacier Bay



I woke up to the most beautiful dark blue sky with almost no clouds at 4.32 to see the full moon in the sky. What an omen for today I knew it was going to be spectacular! I went back to bed but only dozed on and off. As soon as the alarm went we were up showered and off for breakfast. We were back in our room by 8 and layered our clothes, ready to adventure outside on the balcony for the views. The temperature expected for the day was 7C. The ship picked up a park ranger who was going to give us commentary whilst cruising in Glacier Bay. We headed up through the Narrows and past Gloomy Knob . On went the beanie, hat and gloves, and the views began. We sailed into John Hopkins Inlet and went down to the end where we saw the first huge glacier The John Hopkins! It was huge and the sheer face was massive. The colour inside the cracks/crevasses was icy mint green. “Glacier green”. You could see the dirt that it has pushed down over the thousands of years. All I can say is that it was spectacular. As we were cruising we saw a smaller cruise ship that had taken approx. 10 people in an inflatable boat out to the face of the glacier. We also noticed that there was another group of people in canoes heading for the face of the glacier. It appeared that the John Hopkins glacier was not quite at the water line maybe because the tide was low. As we entered the Inlet we noticed ice floating around on the surface – icebergs although they were small. Then off to the Tarr Inlet where we noticed an otter playing around on the top of a small iceberg. We took photos but it only turned out to be a black mass on top. Straight in front of us was the Grand Pacific Glacier which you could see from a distance. Due to its size as we approached the white of the glacier was hidden by the huge cliff face that was a dirty colour. Looking just like the land either side. This shows how powerful these glaciers are and how they carve their way through the rock to the side and in front of them. The captain stopped the ship directly in front of the Margerie Glacier. The glacier rose 75 metres from the waterline to the top. It was truly majestic! Had the perfect view for 30 minutes from our balcony with its beauty I could not stop taking photos. In the absolute quiet you could hear cracking of the ice in the glacier and sometimes you could see a part of the ice break away and fall into the water. The cracking sound was quite eerie! I will never forget that sound. The captain then turned the ship around and let the other side of the boat get a look. We were fortunate enough to have a perfect view of the Grand Pacific Glacier. We sipped on our special alcoholic coffee to keep us warm. We spent about 8 hours in Glacier Bay and it seemed like only an hour or maybe 2. The size and beauty of these glaciers cannot be described all I can say is that they brought a tear to my eyes and I became quite emotional. We headed off for lunch and then came back to the room to have a snooze. Tonight was a Gala dinner in the main dining room so we dressed up me in a dress and Ron in a shirt and dress pants for the celebration of our day in Glacier Bay. We headed back to the room for an early night via the dessert bar at the Lido market. We sat and chatted and then decided that we hadn’t eaten enough so up to the supper bar where we had coffee, cake and a mini hamburger.

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Comments

[Tracey Gaffney]

Spectacular!
Sounds like Glacier Bay was everything you hoped it would be ? So happy that you had a great day there.