Glacier Bay - Saturday, July 18
After
a leisurely 113 nautical mile trip from Skagway, we arrived at Glacier
Bay National Park. There are 12 glaciers in this bay, with the
most spectacular being the Margerie Glacier at the very end of the bay.
We slowly made our way into the bay with narration from park
rangers whom we took aboard as we entered the bay. This narration
was over all the deck speakers and was on one of the TV channels so we
could hear it in our rooms.
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As we entered Glacier Bay, the scenery was spectacular!
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Rosemarie and I sat on our balcony for much of our tour of Glacier Bay. Here she is in her brand new Alaska coat.
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And I am here also in my brand new Alaska
coat, and my Cal Poly Grandpa sweatshirt honoring my granddaughter
Kylie starting at Cal Poly shortly. |
We totally enjoyed the scenery on our way into the bay.
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This is Margerie Glacier. It is over a
mile wide and 250 feet high. It extends below the water about 100
feet. It is the most spectacular and most photographed
glacier in the bay.
The face of the glacier is kept clean and white (blue) by the constant calving (breaking off of sections of ice).
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Just next to Margerie is the Grand Pacific
Glacier. You would not pick this out as a glacier, as it is
covered with dirt and rock. It apparently does little calving.
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A large section of ice has just calved from Margerie and is hitting the water.
The
ship stayed in position just off this glacier for about an hour,
rotating in place about every 15 minutes so each side of the ship had
the good view.
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At lunch time there was a buffet on the Lido deck featuring BBQ Salmon, Alaskan Reindeer Chilli Soup, and Rockfish Chowder.
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Of course no Lido deck buffet is complete without the decorations.
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| As we departed Glacier Bay National Park, a
small boat came alongside and took the 3 rangers off the ship.
They had done a wonderful job of commenting on what we were
seeing and answering all our questions. |
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In the evening after dinner, we went to the
Princess Theater for our third music and dance show. This one was
called Motorcity. |
College Fjord - Sunday, July 19
Leaving
Glacier Bay, we left the Inland Passage and headed out through the Gulf
of Alaska. As we had a distance of 451 nautical miles to go, we
sailed all night and most of Sunday, arriving at College Fjord about
5:30 PM. This created somewhat of a quandry, as we normally ate
dinner at 5:30. We decided to eat normally and hope we did not
miss much. We did have a good view out the dining room window
from our usual table. It turned out that we didn't miss anything.
Anything we missed as we entered the fjord, we saw again on the
way out.
During the day the ship had an "up to 75% off
sale" in our dining room, the Bordeaux Room. They were trying to
sell items that had not sold on this trip as well as previous ones.
There were even items from Panama. Besides a few shirts and
sweatshirts, most of the items were scarves, jewelry, and other
trinkets I was not interested in.
Rosemarie did buy a couple items.
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There was a culinary demonstration in the
Universe Lounge. The Executive Chef and the Maitre D'Hotel, along
with the assistant Cruise Director prepared several dishes.
Following the demonstration, they offered a tour of the galley.
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The galley was huge! There were many of these bays, each dedicated to preparing a particular type of food.
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Here we see one of the chefs preparing hamburger patties. |
| .They also had a couple of displays of their fruit carvings. |
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In the early afternoon, I attended a lecture given by one of the ship's officers on the workings of the vessel.
This is one of the slides which shows the stern thrusters, the propellers, and the rudders. |
Tonight's dinner was the second "Formal
Night" dinner of the cruise, and featured the Baked Alaska parade.
All the waiters paraded around carying their dishes. As it
was very dark for this, my picture shows their movement.
During the parade, the patrons were supposed to wave their napkins over their heads. |
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College Fjord is named because the glaciers
are all named after east coast colleges. One side has women's
colleges and the other men's.
After dinner we arrived at the
Harvard Glacier, the showpiece of the fjord. As at Glacier
Bay, the captain held the ship in front of this glacier for about an
hour, rotating it occasionly. |
I spent very little time on deck, as it was
cold and rainy. This was the first time this trip we had this
type of weather.
We were told that up until now, we had very unusual weather, as it was always partly or totally sunny for us. |
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On the way out of the fjord, we got to see the glaciers we missed on the way in. |
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