27 July - Wednesday - Cruise Day 5 - Scenic Cruising through Glacier Bay

G'day All,

Before heading down to Ketchikan the ship headed north to Glacier bay to view several of the glaciers found there; Lamplugh, John Hopkins, Grand Pacific and the biggest of them all Margerie Glacier. The day was very misty and bleak and viewing the distant glaciers at times was difficult. We arrived in glacier bay at about 6 am and I didn't hold much hope that we would be seeing too much of Margerie Glacier and given all the hype by the crew on-board that would be a real shame since the glacier is over 110 metres tall and 1.6 km long. The day didn't get any clearer however as we approached Margerie Glacier we saw a few then hundreds of small icebergs until out of the gloom reared the glacier in all its glory. We parked in front of the glacier for 30 mins on each side of the ship to allow guests from both sides of the ship to see the view from their rooms. I have to say that the view was amazing and it was impressive to hear the cracks and groans as the ice ever so slowly flowed to the ocean. We witnessed a few slabs fall from the front of the glacier into the sea and saw a couple of kayaks, dwarfed by the shear size of the glacier, paddling through the small icebergs along the length of it.

John Hopkins glacier.

The blue hues of the ice combined with the darkness and gloominess of the clouds made for a surreal scene and hopefully some great photos to come after I get time to review them.

Margerie Glacier

Centre section of Margerie Glacier

We turned from the glaciers at about 4:30 pm and headed for Ketchikan, tomorrow's destination.

Cheers
Gary and Penny

26 July - Tuesday - Cruise Day 4 - Skagway - Shopping and Haines Eagle Raft Ride

G'day All,

We arrived at Skagway around 6:20 am and we slept in a little and had a breakfast delivered to the room so had a later start than normal. It was out for a bit of shopping prior to our 1 pm pre-booked Raft ride at Haines, a sanctuary for the Bald Eagle. It was another rainy day but not too cold so we headed out as planned. Shopping wasn't too exciting so we were really looking forward to seeing the bald eagles along the shallows of the most heavily populated area of bald eagles in the world. Another 40 min ferry ride to the township of Haines to take the raft ride down the river. The rafts held up to 8 people and is a gentle float along the river avoiding any rapids. The river is a spawning ground for salmon and feeding ground for the eagles. Unfortunately for us very few salmon were running and we only saw a handful of eagles over 300 metres away in the trees. A little disappointing for me as I was really looking forward to taking some great photos of the eagles :-( best I could do was to snap one a we passed by the tree it was roosting in.

One of the few Bald Eagles we saw.

None the less the raft ride was nice and relaxing with the guides doing all the rowing and us taking in the views and information. The river is in the form of a delta and ranges in depth from over your head to a few inches, yet because of the silt you couldn't tell the depth, the only hint was the dead trees lying in the river.

Rafting down the river in Haines, Alaska.

From the raft ride we returned back to the ship around 7 pm and had something for tea, the ship departed at around 8:45 pm. Next destination was a day on the water cruising viewing the glaciers of Glacier Bay from the ship.

Cheers
Gary and Penny