The 7th day of the cruise brought us to College Fjord.  It’s been fun this week to relive, through my pictures (and DH Jim did take some of these), our fabulous two weeks on the Alaskan cruise, and it’s been fun to share with you.  One thing I can’t share with you, and I would have loved to, is the food!  Of the 14 days, I had lox and bagels for breakfast for 10 or 11 days of the 14 days.  If Holland America goes under, it will be because of the amount of salmon I ate!  And because I know you’re wondering (but are too polite to ask), I gained 5 pounds in two weeks (and because I don’t want you to hate my dear husband, I won’t tell you that he lost 2 pounds). 

We entered College Fjord in the afternoon.   

 This wasn’t a pretty day like our first day in Glacier Bay was.  It was gray and misty.  A lot of people observed the fjord from the comfort of the Crow’s Nest lounge:

And here I’ll sneak in a little delayed “Photo Friday”.  When I took this 1st photo, I wanted to show people observing the glacier from the comfort of the indoors.  I didn’t use flash, but the smart little camera tried to adjust for the low light and the windows showed pure white; there could have been a blizzard outside. 

I retook the photo “tricking” the camera to correctly expose the portion of the picture I wanted to see.  I made sure the brighter outside area was in the little focusing box in the center of the view finder/display, and then pressed the shutter half-way down.  Then I could re-aim the camera where ever I wanted, and the camera would use the exposure setting I locked in by pressing the shutter half-way down.

As we came down the fjord, there was a rounded mountain with a glacier on either side.  These were the two main glaciers:  Harvard and Yale (there are other glaciers with names like Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, etc.)

Cameras (at least in my hands) can only do so much.  There’s no way I could capture the vastness of this whole landscape, let alone the size of the glaciers.  I did find some statistics about the Harvard Glacier indicating the width of the glacier where it comes into the fjord is 1 to 1 1/4 miles wide. 

The Yale Glacier was also absolutely immense, and the light on it was almost magical:

We spent some time by the Harvard Glacier for some very good close-up viewing:

A couple more pictures of the Harvard Glacier.  This first one shows more of the river-like part of the glacier that can go back for miles and miles.  Even though they are ice, they actually do flow.  I thought this glacier was especially blue. 

There were some eagles giving us a pretty thrilling show:

One last look as we leave College Fjord:

That was our Saturday.  Sunday we arrived in Seward where our family members, along with most of the ship’s passengers, disembarked and new passengers joined us (although there were over 200 passengers who stayed on the ship and did the round-trip like we did).  Then we did it all over again in reverse, arriving in Vancouver the following Sunday and flying home to Minneapolis.

What a wonderful, relaxing experience, made especially fun by traveling with some family members.  Wish we could do it all over again, but I can’t risk another five pounds!

Thanks for spending this week in Alaska with me.  Tomorrow I go back to regular “programming” with my stash report.  And speaking of stash, even though I visited five quilt shops (and some I visited two times), I only added 3 1/2 yards of fabric to my stash! 

–Sue

we’re entering Glacier Bay.  (If you’re new, we’ve just returned from an Alaskan cruise, and I’ve been taking anyone who’d like to come along on a re-creation, day by day, of a week on the Holland America Veendam Vancouver-to-Seward cruise.)  Hop on board and I’ll show you around!

I woke up early that Friday morning two weeks ago.  I misread my watch, and I thought it was 7:00 or so.  Quickly I got up and got dressed so I could get up on deck to start watching for the glaciers.  It was then that I realized it was 5:00.  I haven’t mentioned the nights, but at this point in the cruise, it was really dark only from midnight to 4:00 or 4:30.  I was up, so Jim and I headed on up, knowing they were going to have coffee ready early.  What a treat this day turned out to be!  This was our one 100% sunny day out of 14 days spent on the ship, and it was a beauty.

Don’t go thinking it was warm though!  As long as the ship was clipping along through glacial waters, it was so cold on the top deck when I went up there to snap a few pictures, the cold wind would literally take my breath away, and I would have to turn away from the wind to take a breath.  (Once the ship slowed and/or stopped for glacier viewing up close, it was very pleasant.)  And of course there are plenty of viewing areas inside the ship.  Our bonus for getting up so early is we saw several whales spouting off along the way. 

It is actually Glacier Bay National Park, and park rangers came by boat out to our ship to board and give commentary during our time in Glacier Bay.  The bottom photos in this collage each have a glacier flowing down to the sea.   The glacier in the lower right below is the Reid Glacier.

The white/blue glacier below is the Margerie Glacier.  The part of the glacier that projects out of the water is 250 feet high, and it extends another 150 feet below the water line.  This glacier is incredibly wide, and there was a lot of calving this day (where chunks of the glacier split off and crash into the water).  That’s what creates the ice floats in the water.  You will hear the crack, and it sounds to me like a rifle firing, followed by the crash into the water.  In the lower right there is a black glacier that abuts the Margerie Glacier.

From the Tarr Inlet, we headed for Johns Hopkins Inlet for a look at the (you guessed it) Johns Hopkins Glacier.  We couldn’t get as close to this glacier, but it was very dramatic.

At this point, we’re going to fast-forward a few days.  Because we did the cruise round trip, we visited most cities/sights twice.  Our second day in Glacier Bay was a totally different kind of day — drizzly, with low, wispy clouds.  Still very beautiful, but in a new way. 

The larger picture below is of the Reid Glacier.  I really like this photo because the boat in front of the glacier gives it some scale.  (This same glacier is pictured from the 1st day above.)  The small photos are of the Margerie Glacier on the 2nd day.  I think they are even more blue on cloudy days.  And the columns in this glacier juts out as such impossible looking angles, I don’t know how they can stay upright!

Below is a picture of a boat by one of the ice floats.  The ice in the water is a LOT bigger than it looks!  The Lamplugh Glacier is in the upper right spot below.  We were told the black lines in glaciers indicate where, over time, glaciers have merged together.  The bottom two pics are of the Margerie Glacier again, still on the second day.

On our way back out of the park, we saw a harbour seal sunning him/herself.

*Whew*  I know that’s a lot of photos, but you should see all the ones I DIDN’T share with you!!!  You’re welcome.  Oh, why is it called “Glacier Bay”?  Not all that long ago (only 200-250 years ago), this wasn’t a bay at all — it was a huge glacier!  The glaciers are retreating at quite a fast pace.  And why are glaciers blue?  The ice is so dense, that’s the only color of light that escapes through the ice. 

That’s it for today.  Rest up, because tomorrow we’ll visit College Fjord.  

Sue