Glacier Bay Cruising

Monday, July 21st, was a peaceful day of cruising outside of Juneau in Glacier Bay. As you would expect, surrounded by icebergs and a glacier, the weather was the coolest since Dianne and I had be to Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord.

The weather was overcast, but didn't stop any of us onboard from taking numerous digital images and enjoying this beauty of nature.

If there was any disappointment at this glacier it was we didn't see any "calving" of the glacier wall. Calving is the term used when a piece or section of the glacier wall breaks off and falls into the icy waters.

On other cruises to the glaciers, we experienced different calving episodes. The process begin with a cracking sound similar to thunder. You draw your eyes toward that sound and within a few moments, you witness the calving event.

Some calving will be small slithers of frozen ice that has made it way to the front wall of the glacier. If you are fortunate, there can be large pieces of glacier ice that breaks off. On our previous cruise to Alaska, we witnessed a large, Christmas tree shaped size break off and fall into the waters. An incredible experience that looses much in writing about it versus seeing for yourself.

While the ship sat motionless in the icy waters, you had the option of drinking hot coffee, hot chocolate and even a bowl of pea soup! Now that's what I call roughing it!

We now begin our short cruise to the former capital of Alaska when Russia owned the country--Sitka.

As you would expect, we had time now to shop on the ship, relax on one of the decks, continue our eating process, relaxing in the room, taking a short nap, or all of the above!