Tracy Arm Fjord Cruise

Thursday, June 28, 2012

I am now pretty convinced the rocking of the boat is allowing me to get some really great sleep. I slept for about 10 hours!! Love it!! Today the cruise takes us through the Tracy Arm Fjord. Tracy Arm is a fjord near Juneau. A fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity. We all had booked the morning excursion that takes us onto a smaller boat to view Sawyer Glacier. We all met for breakfast and then we packed it up to see the glacier up front and personal!

I have seen icebergs in photos but never in person. So when I saw my first iceberg, it was exciting!!  I could not sit inside and had to go outside to check it out. The boat took us to see some of the most beautiful wilderness I have ever seen. Besides seeing the icebergs and multiple waterfalls, the color of the water was amazing. It had the most beautiful greenish gray color. They explained that it’s from thousands of years from the ice of the glacier pounding the rock underneath it which turns into silt. Breathtaking I tell you!! As we cruised through the fjord, Mike tells me that I will know when I see the glacier and sure enough as the boat went around the bend, there it was! Wow! The river of ice had stunning colors of white and blue and is just beautiful. You could hear the thundering of some of the ice breaking off and crashing into the water. There were icebergs just floating around with seals just kicking back on them. The guide had told me that once about 3 years ago she actually witnessed the entire face come down. She said the wave that it caused had everyone holding on. Must have been pretty spectacular to witness.

Iceberg!

 

 

 

 

 

Love the blue color!

Beautiful Scenery! Check out the color of the water!

One of the many waterfalls

Sylvia and Martha

Sylvia, Martha, Nate, Me and Shayne enjoying the boat ride

While checking out the glacier and seals, Mike C bought us all Alaskan beer and we toasted to getting up front and personal with the glacier. What a great moment! The boat hung out for a while so that we could just take it in and enjoy it.The boat started heading back to the ship and I think they were having some communication issues. So the boat turned around and headed to the North Sawyer Glacier!! Lucky us, we were able to see two glaciers up front and personal. The guide said that this does not happened very often. What a beautiful excursion!! The scenery just spectacular and I know that photos of it do not do it justice and don’t think there are not quite the words to truly describe it.

First glimpse of the south Sawyer Glacier

Seals just kicking it on the icebergs

Colors are just amazing within the glacier

  

Mike, Me, Sylvia, Martha, Lilia and Mike C. Cheers!!

Once back on the boat is was lunch on the Lido Deck. I am so confused. This is my second cruise and all I hear from people that like to cruise is how wonderful the food is. Well, there is lots but definitely not quality. What's up with that? After lunch we headed back to Lilia's room for some shots of Patron! Sitting on their balcony and enjoying the view was awesome!! Then we headed for round two of Trivial Pursuit! We did pretty well. Good team work!!

Shots of Patron on Mike C and Lilia's Balcony

Then it was off for a little R&R and the get ready for dinner. We ate in the Empire room. So glad we decided to not do scheduled dinner times. We chose the “Your Time Dining”, which means we eat at whatever time and we choose who we eat with.  Looks like we have been choosing the 8pm time for dinner and it appears we have been closing down the restaurant every night. The weird thing is that it feels so early. The sun sets and 9:50pm or so, but it still light out at 11pm. We go to bed when it’s light out and wake up when it’s light out. Feels like 20 hour days!! Can you imagine what it’s like to have 20 hour nights?

Tomorrow – Skagway!