ENEN A BEHEMOTH LIKE NIEUW AMSTERDAM starts to rock-and-roll in 25-knot winds and ten-foot seas. Landlubbers to the core, both Connie and I awoke during the night from the constant motion but we waited until morning to stick a motion-sickness patch behind our ear.
Approaching Glacier Bay National Park
All hands on deck for Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay National Park
Glacier Bay National Park is the highlight of the cruise and the weather gods smiled on us Tuesday. Even the Park Ranger guides who joined us inside the fjord were ecstatic—days like this are a rarity. Glacier Bay was as calm as a mill pond and the forward decks were open for viewing.
Sunny skies and wonderful scenery
Johns Hopkins Glacier, Glacier Bay NP
Marjorie Glacier, Glacier Bay NP
While the Park Ranger recited the statistics of the glaciers and the peaks that towered above us—height, thickness, width, length, speed—even why the ice is blue (it absorbs all the other wavelengths) I wondered about is how vast they much have been in the days of Jack London and how much longer visitors would be able to appreciate them. Margerie Glacier is certainly the most photogenic—blue ice snaking back into the valley from its towering ice-wall—while Johns Hopkins Glacier looks more like day-old roadside city snow.
A trio of cuties
Sea Otter, Glacier Bay NP
Common Mures were very common
Sea Scoters on the run
Glaciers weren’t the only attraction. Cuddly Sea Otters—singly, in pairs, small clusters and “rafts” of 100—floated on their backs staring up they drifted by. There were birds, too. Gulls, of course, but also Common Mures, rafts of Surf Scoters and even a couple of Tufted Puffins.
Orca patrolling for sea lions
Safe for the moment, Stellar's Sea Lions
Orca, Glacier Bay NP
As we were leaving the fjord the Ranger directed our attention to a pair of rocky islands, “haul-outs” for Stellar’s Sea Lions. As we crept nearer we saw the distinctive high triangular dorsal and white marking of an Orca, nonchalantly looking for an unsuspecting sea lion dinner. I counted four Orcas but the Ranger, high on the bridge, reported seeing seven.
