Sitka to Seward—Awesome Ice and a Foggy Sea

(July 6) – We left Sitka yesterday and rolled and pitched in the ocean as the ship moved northward toward the Gulf of Alaska and a side trip by the Hubbard Glacier this morning. When Mike and I hit the walking trip this morning about 6:20 or so, we were coming into Yakutat Bay. As we walked the next half-hour, the ship moved up Disenchantment Bay, an arm of Yakutat, to where Hubbard Glacier comes down to the water.

Not only does the Hubbard come down here from its beginning 76 miles away in the Yukon Territory, but two other smaller glaciers, the Turner and the Haenke hit the water here as well. On our approach, the water became thicker and thicker with chunks of ice, some white with the glowing blue of rock flours and other floes blackened by the rock of the moraine beneath the glaciers. As the ice moves over rock, it grinds it into a sort of gravel and carries it along.

We began hearing the ice, too. The smaller pieces make snapping and popping sounds as they float by. (Some wag dubbed them “ice krispies.”) This was only the beginning of our audio experience.

Not only is Hubbard Glacier visible, but it’s audible with the growling thunder we heard as the glacier is calving (losing chunks into the sea). Because the captain was able to bring the ship in close to the glacier, we were circling in a sort of icy amphitheatre and the booming of the glacier as pieces were breaking off was stereophonic.

In the midst of this icy splendor, we spent the first hours of the morning marveling at the grandeur and beauty of it all. To see the glacier up close is astounding. It is a river of ice, appearing to have been poured from some giant unseen bucket down the slopes of the mountains toward the sea. As we learned, Hubbard is actually famous for “surging” or moving forward quickly (as glaciers go).

It was somewhat daunting to be so close and hear that Hubbard hit the news in 1986 when it advanced into the mouth of Russell Fiord dammed it into a lake with the water rising to 90 feet above sea level. At that point, the glacier was advancing 30 meters a day. When that dam broke a bit later, the rush of water was like a tsunami.

Hubbard surged again in 2002. So, it’s possible that it could happen again. Of course, captains of ships like ours are cautious and won’t go as close if the ice is coming down dangerously fast. They are understandably cautious, so we were lucky to have the right conditions today for such a close-up view. It was Hubbard in 3-D for us and truly awesome to behold.

Leaving Yakutat Bay to sail out into the Gulf of Alaska toward Seward, we are having yet another misty, foggy trip. We could see the steep mountainsides as we left the bay and watched for harbor seals on the ice floes and bears on the dark beaches along the shore, but didn’t catch sight of anything much, just one seal’s head popping up beside a floe.

Our day and the night to come will most likely be spent rolling on the sea in a dense fog. The ship has provided lots of activities and, of course, lots of food and drink to amuse us. We have to have our checked luggage packed and ready for pickup by 11 tonight, so most folks are getting that done between trips to the bar or the ship’s store for those ever-popular last day sale items.

I haven’t been able to keep my sea legs under me today, nor have most passengers. The rolling is somewhat unpredictable, so we wobble and wander our way down the hallways and through the common areas, trying not to run into each other or the walls and furniture. We appear much like drunken penguins, unsteady on our feet and often suddenly veering sideways rather than keeping a straight course. I suspect those with motion sickness aren’t having much fun in this sea.

We’ll go to the crew “capers” tonight to see what talents they might possess. They have been unfailingly pleasant and helpful, obviously well recruited and trained for these jobs that keep them at sea for six months at a time. While they are seeing the world, some of our crew have revealed a wistfulness for home and family in our conversations.

It has been a great cruise. I suppose one could complain about the few sunny days we’ve had (and some do), but this feels like a genuine experience of Alaska to us. After all, we’re in a rainforest, visiting places that have hundreds of inches of rain each year. All that rain creates this incredibly lush ecosystem and supports the abundant wildlife that we came to see. So the rain does seem to belong here.

Tomorrow morning we’ll leave the ship in Seward and spend a day there before heading out to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula where we’ll wander and sightsee for a few days before heading home.