Le Voyage Part 3

A glacial wonderland

Today we're supposed to have the opportunity to view some wildlife and see a couple more glaciers. A couple more glaciers, hah. They're everywhere, but these will prove to be special glaciers.

When we awake and look out the window, we see it's cloudy and foggy. Landmasses are visible, though, and the scenery is impressive even if you can't quite see it clearly. We're going to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and will pick up some park rangers to act as guides. The cruise director made a comment the night before about them climbing rope ladders to board the ship, which I take as a joke. As it turns out, it's not. I don't notice that we ever come to a full stop, but in any case their boat comes alongside, a rope ladder is dropped, and the rangers clamber aboard. I hope they receive extra pay for doing that.

After breakfast, we head for the promenade deck, where the Sandra, the naturalist, has said she'll be helping passengers spot wildlife. It's raining now, and as we come to the stairs up to the bow, we meet a large group coming down. The guy in the front says, "And I got up early for that" as he goes by. We join a very small group on the deck around Sandra, who's explaining something to the group. Suddenly she shouts, "We have sea otters," and points. We rush over to the rail, cameras in hand, and start trying to shoot pictures. Other people begin seeing more otters, many in small groups, and we all stand happily in the rain and wind, shooting away.

Sandra explains that the otters float on their backs most of the time, and they have pockets of skin in which to carry rocks for cracking open shellfish. The very young ones take up position on mom's stomach as they float past. They seem to be used to seeing ship pass by, but occasionally a group  will dive if the ship comes close.

A group of otters swims by the ship

Eventually Sharon and I start to feel the cold and need to wipe the water off our cameras, so we step back and visit with the naturalist a bit. She's disappointed that so many people left. She also says they'd spotted a hunchback and an orca shortly after nine, when she'd started her stint. Don't know if any of that disgruntled bunch saw the whales, but I'm guessing not, given the reaction.

One of the park rangers is scheduled to give a lecture at 10, and we decide to take it in, as much to dry out and warm up as anything, but the talk is informative.

Afterward, we decide to visit a spot above the covered pools where the rangers have set up a display. About the time we arrive in that area of the ship, one of the rangers begins a PA broadcast from the bridge. She spots some mountain goats on the starboard side of the ship, and passenger begin a mini-stampede for the nearest exit to the outside deck. One woman shoves me out of the way just after I go through the door in her rush to the rail to take a picture.

I don't mean to stereotype, but my memory of older people is that once upon a time they tended to be more polite than other age groups. I'm used to children shoving past me, but adults living together in limited space should know better. But so far I've been far more likely to be cut off, shoved and generally treated as though I don't exist by the older people on board than the younger ones.

Out on deck, people start pointing at the shore and taking pictures. I look through my zoom in the direction they're pointing, but the only things I see look like rocks. Sharon eventually spots a group of the goats and manages to get a couple of pics that confirm she has indeed spotted the goats. Looking at her pics is the only way I see the critters.

It's not long before we're frozen again (Let it go! Let it go!), so we go back in, check the schedule at the ranger's display and head for a hot drink and snack. The materials we've been given indicate that most of the cool stuff to see will be on the starboard side of the boat, where our room is, and we go back there. The rain lets up, and we're protected better on our balcony than we were on the lower outside deck. The further we travel into the bay, the more the clouds relent, and by the time we reach the first set of glaciers, sun is peeking through occasionally. Sweet.

The two glaciers we're going to see, the Grand Pacific and the Margerie flow into the bay right next to each other, one to the northeast, the other to the northwest. The Grand Pacific is receding and doesn't register as being a glacier at first because the face is dark and looks much like land because it is covered in debris, mostly rocks and dirt from landslided. The first ranger we heard earlier had warned us we might think, "That's not a glacier."

The Grand Pacific glacier -- its that dark mass running
through the middle of the picture. No, really, that's a glacier.

On our approach the face of the Margerie is visible to our left, looking like a proper glacier, for a short while before we come to a halt, and the captain pivots the boat starboard. We can see the full face of the Grand Pacific, but none of the Margerie.

After some while, I check the time and see that it's just a half hour till we depart. The captain is supposed to pivot the boat so those of us in our starboard rooms will be able to see the Margerie, but I'm afraid we'll miss something so we head down to the promenade and go outside on the port side, where the Margerie looms before us in all it's glory. I ask a small group of passengers if they'd seen the ice calve yet, and one woman excitedly tells me they had, and she had video of it on her iPhone.

Not long after, Sharon sees some "small" pieces fall off. I say "small" because of that perspective thing. They could be as big as a car for all I know. Soon, we begin to hear the cracks and booms, then Sharon calls out, "Look, it's starting over there," and points to my left. I whip my camera up and see some ice falling. Then we hear another boom, and a big chunk of the face calves off. I manage to shoot three or four times and capture some of the event.

Shortly, the ship begins turning to port to head back the way we came.We scoot back up to our room for the next leg, which will take us to the Johns Hopkins Inlet to see the John Hopkins Glacier. Both are named, by the way, for the institution, not the man. The man who named it, Harry Reid, had attended Johns Hopkins. This segment of the passage is one of those "dittos" I mentioned in the first post, just one spectacular view after another. At this point, I've run out of superlatives. My camera's getting a workout. From time to time, I stop shooting so I can sit and absorb the beauty we're passing through.

The ranger broadcasting on the PA comments this area lies along a fault, and the two rock plates that come together here are composed of different types of rock. The uplift that shows where the two are "stitched" together reveals the stark contrast in the makeup of the rock.

Another thing she points out is something Sharon and I have already discussed: the sound that the ice floes make as we pass by. Ever drop an Alka Seltzer or one of those flavored fizzy tablets into a cup of water? Remember that fizzy sound? Well that's what we're hearing, along with some slushing sounds as the ice rocks in the small bow waves the slowly moving ship makes. I recorded the sound on my iPod, where it sounds more like someone left water running slowly in a tub.

Sounds of glacier ice melting

Almost every glacier we've seen has an associated waterfall. From our vantage on the ship, at some distance away, the flows appear to be rivulets wandering down the mountain. Take a close look through the zoom, and you can clearly see they are more like rivers with great crashing waterfalls. On one occasion, we're close enough to the shore to be able to hear the roar of one of the falls.

Once we turn to head out of the bay, the ship picks up speed, and our pass of the "lesser" Lamplugh and Reid glaciers goes by pretty quickly. The Reid, by the way, was named after Harry Reid, just not by him. While sitting and occasionally standing, we continue to give our cameras a workout. After passing the Reid glacier, we decide we're cold and tired and ready for a nap. We'll wind up skipping the evening session with the naturalist, when she plans to look for wildlife again.

The evening would be spent recuperating and attending some of the on-board entertainment. Two shows are scheduled, and we take in the later showings of each, scurrying from one venue to the next. The shows are good, but I'd say the talent we've had on our other cruises outclasses this bunch.

Warning: Another ageist statement ahead. I've noticed that the early shows are packed. So much so that we don't even bother trying to go at those times. Attendance at the late shows has varied but is always much lighter. Could it have something to do with the age of the crowd? Maybe more of them wan to go to bed early than want to stay up late? Who knows?