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Published: July 26th 2021
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Today is all about glaciers and icebergs and the entire ship is looking forward to more turquoise blue water, floating ice and hopefully some calving glaciers.
The morning was spent at the In Williams Cove, at the beginning of Tracy Arm which has two very long and deep fjords with multiple glaciers. We woke to bright blue skies and surrounded by alien looking icebergs and of course Ken was all excited to “lick the iceberg”. Visions of the little kid in The Christmas Story were floating though my head, and I could just imagine getting the ever-present skiff to get him unstuck.
Luckily, we had a safety briefing before getting in our kayak and the key instructions was to stay 2 kayak lengths away from the icebergs. They are known to tip over and if that happened, it wouldn’t be just unsticking Ken that we would be worried about.
I must say, kayaking around these beautiful pieces of ice pop art was just super cool (on many levels!). they were multi-colored, dripping and moving due to the water flow. Each side showed a different view and it was hard not to continue to paddle around them multiple times,
but we needed to head back to the ship for the next fun thing: The Polar Plunge!!
Ok, not so much for me. Heck, I think the water in Hawaii is cold, so jumping in to the cold Alaska water without a wet suit just isn’t going to happen. For Ken? Yup, right up there with bushwhacking!! He joined about ½ of our 33 other guests as they nervously lined up for the torture, oh yeah, plunge. He was in the first group and in he went! And boy, did he get out fast (as did everyone who jumped!). Although one crazy, ok hearty guy went twice!
The afternoon was spent moving further into Tracy Arm to the South Sawyer Glacier. While we had been at the Johns Hopkins Glacier earlier in the week, this glacier was even more spectacular. We were all assigned a skiff time and ours was one of the last to go out and was led by Taylor, one of our favorite guides who is out of Gig Harbor, just down from us on Bainbridge Island.
Our skiff driver skillfully dodged the floating icebergs as the eight of us motored the 2 miles
to the massive glacier. As we got closer, we slowed down to not bother the many seal pups that were hanging on the icebergs. The moms put them in the glacier waters on the bergs to keep them safe from whales and other predators that aren’t interested in patrolling the glacially frigid water.
We were able to get within ¼ mile from the glacier and at that point we stopped and just floated to watch the impressive piece of ice. It is approx. 25 miles long, so the face of what we are seeing is just a very small portion of the glacier. There is every color of blue top to bottom, side to side which is spectacular. In addition to the stunning visuals, the sounds were continuous from small cracking to loud booming as the ice cracked and calved.
We all were entranced, until it let out a massive boom and a very large part of the face fell with a flourish into the water where it caused an even larger splash. Our skiff driver immediately knew that we were too close to the waves coming at us, and we quickly backed up until we were in
safe water. Nevertheless, we still got a 5 foot swell that felt like a small roller coaster. The oohs and ahs continued as another boom and an equally massive part of the face calved into the water. Luckily we were already far enough from the coming waves, so we enjoyed another mini roller coaster ride.
To celebrate, Taylor had brought some hot chocolate paired with Baileys, and we toasted to the spectacle of nature. All to soon it was time to head in and join our comrades for a rousing happy hour full of tales of glaciers and icebergs. Dinner was followed by a slide show from our amazing week, courtesy of Ashleigh, another wonderful guide from our week.
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