Blogs from Glacier Bay, Alaska, United States, North America - page 2

We started the day up in the Lido: Fried eggs and bangers for me and French Toast for Sharon. This will be Sharon’s third visit to Glacier Bay, involving a day of scenic cruising in this Ranger hosted maritime visit to the large national park; and, for her it looks like the third time is the charm. Her previous visits here, including one with me two years ago, have been plagued by fog and inclement weather. I checked on the way back to our cabin after breakfast; but, was correct in my suspicion that no Sudoku puzzles were available in the library. Sharon went out on the Lower Promenade to take pictures where I briefly joined her before returning to the cabin to add an additional layer and the fetch the binoculars. The wind was up ... read more

Glacier Bay 30 July 2016 We all woke excited to see out our window, ice floating in the water and then we saw the amazing site of John Hopkins Glacier, Margerie Glacier and the massive Grand Pacific Glacier. The ship went up close to the latter and stayed for over an hour. This gave us plenty of time to gaze at it, seeing puffin birds, sea lions, seagulls and large sheets of ice crashing off the end of the glacier. The day was beautiful. The sky was clear blue reflecting through the ice and onto the water. It was majestic and the reason for coming to Alaska. We had Glacier Bay Rangers on board the ship who constantly made announcements providing information on glacial in general as well as the whole of Glacier Bay. One of ... read more

Photos from Glacier Bay We were still at sea this whole day. In fact, it wouldn’t be until the next day we would dock for the first time since we left Whittier. Glacier Bay National Park is much bigger than Hubbard Glacier even from the water, but the visibility was barely better, so it was hard to compare. Again, since this blog is supposed to be about the photos, this will be another short entry. Although Glacier Bay was bigger, our approach to it was much the same as it was at Hubbard. The ship moves in and slowly circles, which means that a tripod wouldn’t have helped with long exposures because we moved ever so slightly. It’s like trying to take a long exposure of the moon. It Moves. In Glacier Bay the boat just ... read more

On the ferry ride to Gustavus (Gus-TAY-vus), we went to the Observation seating area and with some foreboding, found the only remaining spot was to the left, near a large and loud family, next to the children’s play area. Across from us in the center were two men among many others, the one closest we soon learned was Steve, a very gregarious retired Yellowstone Ranger. He and his very amiable brother-in-law Dan struck up a conversation with us and become extremely excited when Terry told them he was the former longtime chef at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Steve, it turns out, is a fanatical golfer, with a nearly completed goal of playing the best public course in each state. Playing at a private course like Shinnecock was the next level of dreams. A very lengthy and ... read more

Early morning entry into Glacier Bay, 6.00a.m. very foggy and not able to see much of the mountain tops, but within two hours WOW! Glacier Bay have you turned on the beautiful weather, sunny and crisp! Just amazing cruising up the passage with icebergs bobbing up and down beside the ship. Such an eerie feeling, such wilderness and no civilisation for miles around. Saw some amazing glaciers here, all different, Margerie Glacier 1 mile wide and at least 200ft high and we actually saw some carving happening, lots of small ones but just before we turned around to leave a huge one went down - this happens all the time on the face of the glaciers. Cruised by at least 4 different glaciers, and stopping for one hour in front of one, and by mid afternoon ... read more