If you couldn't figure it out by the title of this post, today was our day in Glacier Bay National Park. And, in a word, it was AMAZING! We entered the park at around noon today, at which point several park rangers boarded the ship to be our guides for the afternoon. One of the rangers gave a brief presentation about the park, so Gus and I went to that. It was all very interesting! One thing I did not know was that John Muir was the first person to suggest that Yosemite was carved by a glacier, and that this theory was very unpopular and widely discredited. Determined to prove that he was right, Muir hitched a ride on a boat up here to Glacier Bay and spent a long time gathering data and observations about how glaciers shaped the land. And he was able to use this information to prove his theory about Yosemite. Go, John Muir!
Anyway, we saw a lot of glaciers, but none so impressive as the Marjorie Glacier. I think I took 100 pictures of that one alone! It's at the very end of a long fjord, and is right on the Canadian border.
We spent a few hours out on the bow, and were able to see the glacier as we approached. It was, however, FREEZING out there! It was mostly the wind that was an issue, but I had very warm clothes on and was still cold. My fingers and face were totally numb! Once we realized that the boat was turning around, we knew we would have a fantastic view from our balcony. So we left the bow, ran to the lido deck to get some coffee and tea, and headed back to our stateroom. Sure enough, we had an AWESOME view. And I really do mean that it was awesome in the most literal sense. I think we were both very definitely in awe. I mean, LOOK at this!!
I decided to come into our nice, warm stateroom, but am still enjoying an incredible view from where I sit. It's so unreal! Mother Nature has some pretty cool tricks, that's for sure! I should also add that the bay itself is like glass... not a wave to be found! It didn't even feel like we were on a boat today, yet we were most definitely gliding forward. This next picture illustrates just how smooth the water was. All of those white spots are actually floating chunks of ice that have calved off of the Marjorie Glacier. Craziness!
And yes, the water really is that color-- almost an aquamarine! It's because of all the minerals that the glacial ice contains by the time it hits the salt water. And in case you couldn't have guessed, that water is pretty darn cold (a balmy 35 degrees-- brrrrr!).
We also spent a lot of time looking through the binoculars today, in search of wildlife...
Sadly, we seemed to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time! I talked to another cruisegoer who saw a whale spouting, and one of the couples we ate dinner with saw some orcas. I was so jealous! We did, however, see a pod of dolphins (or possibly Dall porpoises, which are similar) while we ate breakfast this morning. And a bald eagle buzzed us while we were standing on the bow. Still, I know there will be many more opportunities this cruise, especially when we get to Sitka and go on our sea otter and wildlife excursion! Yippee!
Anyway, it's getting late, and it's almost time to go to our nightly show. Tonight, it's an illusionist! Fun! One very weird thing about Alaska, though, is that it's currently 7:30pm, and the sun is high in the sky. It won't set until close to 11pm tonight, will come up before 5am tomorrow. It's definitely messing with my internal clock! I'm not complaining, though, because this means I will continue to get great views of Glacier Bay for several more hours. It really is so rugged and beautiful!
Coming up tomorrow: Juneau, the capital of Alaska! We will be canoeing along the face of the Mendenhall Glacier at around lunchtime, and I can hardly wait! I will have to bring my small camera with me, since the good one will interfere with my rowing, but I am still hoping to get some amazing shots. And after that, I am hoping to locate a Starbucks so I can use their free wifi to upload my blog posts for the past few days, which I've been saving on my computer. :)
I wrote all the above stuff a few hours ago, before dinner and the magic show (which was really good, by the way!). After the show, we went back to our stateroom and Gus assumed his post out on our balcony with the binoculars. Within minutes, he was frantically waving me outside with him. We saw what we thought was another pod of Dall porpoises, which was cool. But then, off in the distance, we saw a spout of water... followed by three more. Then a few large black flukes sticking out of the water. Then the distinctive tall dorsal fin found only on ORCAS!!!!!! YES! We think there were four of them, off hunting for their dinner. We watched them from a long time off of our balcony, then moved to the back of the ship for a better view. How cool is that???? There's no way I could have gotten a good photo of them, since the sky was getting dim (I mean, it was almost 10pm!) and they were so far off, but we saw them! We saw them!!!!!!! YAAAAAY!!!
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