20090804 – Glacier Bay

We were up way early this morning. They adjusted the temperature in our stateroom from too cold to too warm and we sweated through the night. We were also anxious to see Glacier Bay and its glaciers, so sleep ended at 5:30. We fussed around in our room until 7:00 when we could go to the Lido Deck to get breakfast. The flu precautions were still in affect, so the buffet was blocked off with saran wrap and we had to be served by the counter staff. We were early enough so that we got through the lines quickly.

There wasn’t much to see during the morning because of the fog and smoke from fires several miles away. We spent some time outside on deck to see what we could see. That included a couple of humpback whales who took one look at our ship and did a deep dive.

Naturalists boarded our ship and began lectures and running dialogs of our course. We saw good lectures about bears and about native people of this area. After that it was lunch time and it started to clear up.

After lunch we reached Margerie Glacier and its neighbor Grand Pacific Glacier. The ship drifted near the glaciers so that we could study them and take photos. There was some calving but nothing major. Margerie Glacier is a mile wide and 250 feet high. Some of the ice pinnacles were over 100 feet high. We were impressed by the beauty of the ice especially the aquamarine color.

After viewing this glacier, we moved on to Lamplugh Glacier. This glacier was smaller and had its own characteristics. There was a roaring river that spouted out of the face at its mid point. The pinnacles were more rounded and had interesting markings. Again, there was no significant calving so we didn’t see huge chucks of ice falling into the water. We heard lots of cracks that sounded like rifle shot, though. These were from small calvings.

After looking at this glacier, we set sail for our next port.

We had another really good dinner with the Bensons and two other couples. Coincidently, one of the women  lives in the Bay Area (San Jode)was born in western Washington, went to one of the Claremont colleges (Harvey Mudd) and new Mark Johnson, the Benson’s nephew.

It’s now 10:20. The temperature in our room has been sort of fixed and we are going to bed.