2009-8-20 Glacier Bay

Thursday was another much anticipated day for me---Glacier Bay day! Glacier Bay is America's largest water area park. It is also part of a 24 million acre World Heritage Site, the largest internationally protected area in the world.

We even slept with the curtains open so we wouldn't miss any of the daylight hours. We were in the Summer Cafe by 7 am eating breakfast and looking out at the scenery as we cruised through the bay. This was just one of the many glaciers we saw as we were cruising on our way to Marjerie Glacier.

A zoom close up of glaciers on the mountains tops.

More glaciers along the way.

When we finally got to Marjerie Glacier, I was in awe! Marjorie is an Ice Age giant 21 miles long, a mile wide, and stands 250 feet above water and another 100 feet below water. Since it reaches into the water, it's called a tide-water glacier. This little excursion ship gives some perspective to the size of this glacier! The glacier towered over our 14 story ship.

Layers of rocky debris create interesting patterns in the ice. The glaciers appear blue because the ice in the glacier absorbs shorter red and green light waves. Again we had an overcast day, with lots of wind, off and on rain, and some very cold temperatures. I was afraid the ice wouldn't show the brilliant blue with the harsh weather, but it was still pretty impressive.

We were even lucky enough to witness lots of calving. The sound of the ice breaking sounded like an explosive charge going off. Once we heard it, we would quickly scan the glacier and then see chunks of ice falling into the water.

The waves made by some of the chunks of ice were large enough to rock our boat a bit.

Just another picture showing off the blue of the glacier.

I managed to have company on the 13th outside level for part of the time. Most of them ended up going back into the warmth of Spinnaker lounge. My camera and I stayed outside until we left the glacier.

This calving was an extremely huge chunk of ice. We thought the we had already seen a large calving, but this one was gigantic---probably the size of that excursion cruise ship or even larger.

These were just 2 of the many calvings we saw here at Margerie.

Our time at Marjerie was extended quite a bit, too, due to a medivac taking place here. It was rather interesting to watch the procedure. It did take quite awhile, but that meant more time to enjoy the glacier. Never heard what happened to the passenger who was medivaced. Hope he/she is ok.

Once the medivac was completed, we took off to another glacier. Again we had lots of views of distant glaciers along our way.

In the early afternoon, we reached Lamplugh glacier. It is 8 miles long, 150-160 feet above water, and 10-40 feet below water. Note the kayakers in the left foreground of this picture.

An interesting feature about this glacier is that it has a waterfall coming out of it, much like at Mendenhall Glacier.

The waterfall water was a murky color while the glacier melt water was a deep milky turquise. The distinct line between the 2 waters was rather interesting.

Compared to my previous cruise through Misty Fjord, Glacier Bay was quite a bit more spectacular! Even though the weather on that previous trip was fabulous, we didn't get close enough in Misty Fjord to see much of any glaciers. Here in Glacier Bay we saw several glaciers.

After leaving Glacier Bay, the ship was booking it to make up time. Later that night, we made it to the Sharkbait show and thoroughly enjoyed it.