The Hubbard Glacier

On our way up to the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska, we had to travel outside the Inside Passage to Yakutat Bay. I could tell that we were no longer in those protected waters with a little rocking and rolling on the ship, but it wasn't bad. The captain announced that we would be traveling through a particularly narrow area and there was a good chance of seeing some whales. I made my way out and up to the front of the 12th deck to watch and sure enough, we saw three or four whales.

As we entered Yakutat Bay in the morning and made our way up to the glacier, the water changed drastically. It became like a sheet of glass and soon we were seeing chunks of ice floating in the water. It was cold, a bit windy and had that typical Southeast Alaska misty rain for our trip up the Bay, but we stuck it out on deck so we could see it all. The waiters on board were coming around with trays of drinks. Not fruity cocktails with umbrellas, but thermal mugs of hot chocolate into which they could add a shot of Baileys Irish Cream. The first ice we spotted in the water was some bigger icebergs. Most were a beautiful light blue color. The naturalist on board explained that this comes from the ice crystals which make up the glacier absorbing all the colors from the light except blue. These icebergs were also very opaque meaning that they had not been compressed very much when they were part of the glacier.

Coming closer to the glacier, we started seeing many more small bits of ice floating in the water. These became more abundant the closer we got. I did spy one larger piece that was incredibly clear and dark in color. This had apparently been greatly compressed in the glacier. We were told that the ice we were seeing was probably between 200 and 400 years old.

It was very misty and then to the right of our ship, another ship the Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas appeared out of the mist. That was an eerie sight. To the left was the Turner Glacier and shortly after it came into view, it stopped raining and the sun was shining way up on the glacier. Every once in a while we would hear a crack that sounded like gunfire in the silence around us. We soon found out that the sound we were hearing were chunks of the massive glacier calving off.

Then straight ahead was the Hubbard Glacier. We were told that it is six miles across it's base. It was massive. We got as close as was safe and could certainly see multiple calvings. We could see huge slabs of ice breaking off and violently splashing into the bay. Right after seeing this begin, we heard the gunshot sound that accompanied it.

I have mostly cruised in warmer waters, and this was amazing to me seeing all the ice in the water. The surface was very calm and rippled ice and all with any disturbance.

The captain sent out one of the lifeboats and the crew was able to snag a fairly large piece of the ice which was brought on board and put in an aft swimming pool for all to see and touch.

As we headed back out of the bay, I reluctantly returned inside the ship to dry off and warm up. I couldn't believe how much time I had spent out on deck to see this glacier, but it is truly one of the most awesome things I have ever seen. The captain then pointed the ship toward Alaska's capitol, Juneau.

Ketchikan

Day two of my recent trip to Alaska aboard the Celebrity Mercury was spent at sea cruising the Inside Passage. It was an eerie day. When I woke, it was a little foggy, but as the day progressed, you could see nothing beyond the ship. I felt like I was in a Stephen King novel. Around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon, we sailed out of the fog and it turned into a beautiful day.

The next morning I woke early to see Ketchikan coming into view. I stepped out on my veranda and into a misty morning. We were just pulling up to the dock and through the fog I could just make out the Cape Fox Lodge with it's funicular crawling up the hillside. After eating breakfast, we were off the ship. My friend Cathy went to a small coffee kiosk and had a cup of Raven's Brew coffee which she really enjoyed. Then we boarded our bus that was to take us 10 miles north through the Tongass National Forest to Totem Bight State Park. This park was built as a replica of a Tlinget native settlement. There are 13 totem poles as well as a community house set right near the water's edge in a very natural setting. We walked a short trail through the temperate rain forest to reach the settlement. It was an incredibly peaceful area. As I was walking through, I veered off to the "beach." In Southeast Alaska, this is an area at the water's edge that is rocky and covered in mussels and kelp.

Back in the town of Ketchikan, our first stop was a shop my kids had remembered from visiting when we lived on Wrangell Island. KetchiCandies is still there and still selling lots of sweets. We meandered along the road and made our way up to Creek Street. This is an historic area of town which used to be the "Red Light District". The creek was filled with spawning salmon. Standing on the bridge, you could see them swimming up the creek and smell all of those which had already died.

I walked into the Scanlon Gallery and saw a whole wall featuring artwork by a friend of mine in Wrangell, Brenda Schwartz Yeager. I have several of her pieces and ended up buying a couple more. She paints watercolor images of the Southeast on old preserved navigational charts and they are quite unique. There were also prints by Rei Munoz and Barbara Lavallee. Cathy, who is quite a foodie, stopped at a little counter near the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show and had a crab and chowder meal. It was fantastic, both dungeness and king crab. I went into a gift shop and found the Alaska Wild Berry Products chocolates I had been looking for. They are made of a berry jelly which is dipped in chocolate.

We reboarded the ship and started away from Ketchikan. As we were leaving, we watched floatplanes taking off and landing. We glided past two of the Alaska Marine Highway ferries, the MV Columbia and the MV La Conte. Then to my surprise, I saw the Cornelia Marie docked near the ferry terminal. This is one of the crab boats featured on the Discovery Channels "Most Dangerous Catch". It had been a beautiful day in Ketchikan, didn't rain on us, and we were headed up to the Hubbard Glacier.

My New Blog

Thank you for visiting my brand new blog. I just returned from an 8-night cruise to Alaska aboard the Celebrity Mercury and thought this would be a good place to start. I will be writing about all the different ports over the next few days so keep checking back.

I lived in Southeast Alaska in the mid 90's and didn't know how much I would experience that would be new to me. First of all, a lot changes in eleven years! The towns we visited had grown.

I left Denver on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning to get to Vancouver via Seattle. During the flight to Seattle, the sky was clear and I got an awesome view of both Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier (yes, that is a picture I took above) from the plane. It was almost as if the pilot was doing a fly-by of Mt Rainier, we were so close. When we were transferring to our little Air Canada Jazz jet, there was not a cloud in the sky.

Upon arriving in Vancouver, going through customs was a challenge. We snaked through a line like we were at DisneyWorld for an hour and didn't even get to go on the Dumbo Ride! Once through customs, we found a taxi and were off to the ship.

The Mercury is an older ship, having it's maiden voyage in 1996. Even so, she is in great condition. Once we got to the pier, we went right to the counter, checked in and walked on the ship. We were greeted with champagne and escorted to our Concierge Class cabin. We had champagne and chocolates awaiting us in our cabin.

As late afternoon approached, we had our mandatory lifeboat drill and then began to sail North. I stayed out on our veranda for a long time watching the coast float by. People were on a bridge that we passed under waving to us as we left.

That night, we had a "White Night" cocktail party in the Navigator lounge that had an amazing array of goodies. There was everything from sushi to chocolate. What a way to set off on this adventure.