Einstein said: "The most beautiful thing you can experience is the mysterious."
Well, I was roused by my wake-up call at 4:45am and by 5:15 am I was ensconced in a front row armchair in the Sky Lounge...all the way forward. Paul and Amy were already there with coffee and croissants for us! A panoramic view.....of.....
Rain and mist. So now I get the misty! I took some photos, but they are.....misty! And you can see the raindrops. It was too cold and rainy to venture outside, though a few did in t-shirts and shorts!
Tracy Arm Fjord is a thirty mile glacial fjord, off the Stevens Passage, reaching deep into the Coast Mountains between Alaska and Canada and which leads to the South Sawyer Glacier. Old growth temperate rain forest characterizes the lower reaches and active tidewater glaciers at the upper reaches.
And it was definitely mysterious!
Once we transited "the bar", a shallow area of glacial debris, dividing deep water areas, we encountered bergie bits....beautiful bluish ice floes, calved from the glacier.
One announcement I hate hearing is this: "We usually see bald eagles and bears in this area." Ha! I don't believe them any more. And we did not see any wildlife other than gulls.
We arrived at "the bend" which leads to the glacier and came to a stop. The captain and the local pilots conferred and decided that we could not proceed because of the ice. This would be our last chance to turn around and so the captain decided to play it safe. Amazing how these huge ships seem to turn on a dime. Also, we managed to avoid some good sized bergies. However, we did disembark some passengers who had signed up for a trip in a small boat up to the glacier. They will meet the ship in Juneau. Why did I not book this? I have no idea.
So we headed to Juneau. I went back to my cabin and got some nice shots without raindrops, from my balcony....I kept popping in and out of the cabin...it was cold out there.
At 1:45, I set off on my excursion to the Mendenhall Glacier and a whale/wildlife tour. As we drove through Juneau, the heavens opened. Fortunately, I had full rain gear with me and I pulled my rain pants on. I decided, then and there, that this is a nice place to visit, but I could not live in this rainy climate. Wet and wild? I'll take the wild, but not the wet. As an aside, the Southeast Alaska ecosystem is the largest temperate rainforest in the world. It actually extends all the way to Northern California.
We went out from Auke Bay on another double-hulled boat on a wildlife quest. We saw some whales and some sea lions. One whale treated us to a full breach....guess where I was! On the wrong side of the boat. All I saw was the splash! Talk about disappointed! We saw a lot of bald eagles waiting to fish along the tidal flats. No good vantage point for photos.
While we were out on the boat, the skies cleared and it was gorgeous. Once we got back into town and headed out to the glacier, the skies lowered. The Mendenhall Glacier and its neighbor the Sawyer originate in the Juneau Ice Field. There were some nice "calves" in the glacial lake and a magnificent waterfall. The glacier is quite impressive...not as impressive as those in Glacier Bay further north, but still impressive as glaciers always are. And, it is receding as are most glaciers. The Visitors Center showed photos from a mere 20 years ago and the difference is astonishing. I could not do any of the walks, so I made my way back to a shelter to wait for the bus. At that moment, the skies opened again and it bucketed down.
Once back on the ship at around 7:30, I poured myself a scotch and climbed into bed. It had been a very long day. Wonderful, but long.
P.S. In addition to the activities previously mentioned, there is a glass-blowing facility on board which puts on a hot glass show every day. Pretty unusual! I plan to see it before I disembark.
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