Thursday, May 21

I was out on deck at 5:45 a.m. for our day in Glacier Bay, and went inside only a few times during the ten or so hours we cruised up and down the bay. The temperature was in the 40s, but once again we enjoyed partly cloudy to sunny skies, and our warm clothes kept us perfectly comfortable. In addition to staring at the amazing scenery, we kept watch for marine mammals, and saw lots of them, including sea lions and lots of whales: their spouts, their shiny black backs breaking the surface of the water, and tail flukes flashing just before the whale took a deeper dive. 

Here's part of what a National Park Service brochure says about Glacier Bay: "Just 250 years ago, Glacier Bay was all glacier and no bay. A massive river of ice, roughly 100 miles long and thousands of feet deep, occuped the entire bay. Today, that glacier is gone, having retreated north. Fewer than a dozen smaller tidewater glaciers remain. Impressive in themselves, sequestered at the heads of their inlets in the upper bay, they flow from tall coastal mountains to the sea, and calve great shards of ice that bejewel cold waters with diamond-like bergs."

Our little photos don't do justice to the reality, but we took a lot of them anyway. It's irresitable to try to capture scenes like these! The National Park Service has a wonderful map at their Glacier Bay website (click on "view map" near the upper left) for anyone who wants to know more.

Another ship, gliding ahead of us through the morning mist	Mike, with morning sunshine visible on nearby mountains	Reid Glacier, if I remember correctly
Mike dressed for a day on deck	Lots of broken iceberg pieces: "bergy bits"	Glaciers scrape up lots of soil and rock, resulting in black-streaked ice
I liked being on the upper viewing decks; you can see people lining other railings below	Beautifully striped bergy bit	This glacier is retreating up into the ice field, and its face no longer touches the sea
Approaching the Margerie Glacier	Face of the Grand Pacific Glacier, dark with soil and rock	View of Margerie from the far side of the ship; note its height!
We spent a lot of time in front of Margerie Glacier	Look: we're in Alaska!	In the right light, glacial ice almost glows
Margerie Glacier calved several times as we watched...	...all those fissures are places that ice will eventually break off	The blue color of glacial ice entranced me (it matches my hat!)