Today is going to be another sea day…sort of. After sailing all night from Skagway we are now entering Glacier Bay. Glacier Bay National Park is just over three million acres and part of a bigger area – the World Heritage Site (about 25 million acres, one of the world’s largest internationally protected areas).
During the past few days we have been shadowed by three other ships so there’s four of us traveling the Alaska route. We enter the bay alone and spend several hours very slowly cruising up, into and eventually back out of the bay. During our time there amazing visualizations abound. Distance and size are completely distorted. What appears to be a fairly close shoreline is actually two miles away. Ice that floats close to the ship is, in fact, huge chunks that have fallen and now just float aimlessly. Certainly not big enough to pose the slightest threat, but it might fit in your freezer chest. You know…the floor model where you’d normally keep three sides of beef and half a pig.
Sitting beside a tidewater glacier it soon becomes apparent that ‘calving’ is not always great singular masses falling off the side. It can, quite often, be an avalanche containing several tons of ice of smaller sizes cascading down the side. The video in the picture page (hopefully it gets there) shows exactly that. Keep in mind the spray of the water from the ice falling is about twenty feet high. That gives a bit of an idea just how much ice hit to cause that much of a splash.
Looking at what has been carved by nature one can only marvel at ‘accidents’ that happen. When I saw the elephant, I could only shake my head…and take the shot. Michelangelo had to sit back, think very hard and spend the better part of three years to create David. Nature didn’t think at all, nor spend nearly as much time.
After leaving the bay, we pass by the Zuiderdam (Holland America Cruise Lines) on its way to enjoy more of Nature’s design works.
We now face more sea time making our way to our next port of call, Ketchikan. Having just seen what comes naturally, our ship’s culinary carvers show what they can do. Watermelon, brocoli and many other fruits and vegetables take on totally new identities after meeting with experienced knife-wielding. Certainly impressive in their own right.
Take a peek…and we’ll be back here from Ketchikan shortly.
