Day 5 – July 2nd, Wednesday: Glacier Bay
You would think that glaciers were made of ice it was so cold out on deck. 🙂 The skies were once again many shades of gray. Probably not fifty shades, but a bunch of them. Fog hovered around the coastline until the sun peaked out and banished it in the afternoon. BTW – Sun does not mean warm in Alaska.
Passengers had to stay on the ship and gawk at the immense mountains and slow moving ice. At the entrance of the National Glacier Bay Park, some park rangers boarded to sail with us into the bay, talk about the glacier, answer questions, etc.
Hubby and I hung out on deck 8, where our cabin is. It’s a smaller, away from all the chaos, deck. There were many folks hanging out there because it is a sheltered part of the ship and less windy.
We met up with Hubby’s Bro & wife – they were walking around the entire ship, to catch every view they could, I think. The view from deck 8, port-side, was fabulous, but freezing. So we moved inside to a lounge with a view.
Among the icy sea, we saw the occasional otter and sea-lion floating on the islands of ice in the bay, called floaters. It took me a while to get used to the term ‘floaters’ in regards to ice. I watch a lot of CSI and Criminal Minds, where ‘floaters’ do not refer to ice.
It was a bummer that we could not get closer to the ice. Cruise ships have to stay a good distance away. Chunks of ice, foreshadowed by loud cracking, would break off and fall into the ocean. Why did people cheer when this happened? Don’t ask me. It was so cool to watch, but I believed all the cruise ships, day in and day out, were destroying things. One would think that the park rangers would protest against this, but I suspect that their job is to prevent abuse.
The photos I took were dismal and you could not see the glaciers unless you were in the bay. Or up in a helicopter. Yeah. Right.
On the left side of the ice, where it is flat now, used to be a jagged hunk of glacier that cracked and slid into the bay. Note the blue color.
It took me a while to realize why I felt disappointment when I got the photos downloaded and into my photo gallery. Aside from gray and cobalt blue, the photos had no color. Ahh, wait just a minute!
The sun was not shinning. All the photos on advertisements for Alaska had large bright sunny mountain-scapes. No wonder it did not look familiar.
How am I supposed to compete with this?:
TTFN,
Jodi Lea
Jodi Lea's Place 