When I heard we were coming here, I was skeptical; could Glacier Bay National Park really be that much more spectacular than the Inside Passage and British Columbia? But it is. This is the first time that I have been super thankful to be on my own vessel and not on a fancy cruise liner with pools, hot tubs, entertainment, food prepared for me, etc. Two cruise liners can come in each day – and book it to John Hopkins Glacier and Margerie Glacier and then leave. It is such a rushed visit, they do not get the time to stay overnight in a quiet cove with grizzly bears, kayak around serene inlets, take the time to view the whales, sea lions and otters, and hike to glaciers. That being said, if you do a cruise to Alaska, try to make sure you get on a cruise that comes to Glacier Bay – each moment is a gift.
On our way up to the bay, we got a call from another boat about mountain goats and bears. We did not see either of those, but we did get to see a whale breaching. He was having a heck of a time, frolicking, waving his fins in the air and jumping in the air. He reminded my of a teenager goofing around. We missed the breaching picture but have a great picture of his tail.
7/16/2024 We cruised to Johns Hopkins Glacier – a 12 mile long, calving glacier named after Johns Hopkins University in 1893. With the snowy mountains behind and floating icebergs that we had to dodge, this was possibly my favorite glacier to visit.
7/17/2024 We anchored at Reid Glacier – not quite as pretty, but hey, we are anchored at a glacier1 Reid Glacier is a standing, stable glacier, meaning that it does not calf, and we could walk up to and on the glacier. On the way, the kids drank water from all the freshwater streams coming off the mountains and tasted the glacier ice (I still haven’t made a cocktail from the glacier ice, need to remedy that).
Our walk took longer than we anticipated, and we got back to the Fournado and it looked like this….uh oh.
It is 1100lbs (more with the full tank of gas), so there was no dragging it to the water. My kids turned on their Scout survivalist skills and started building shelters, trying to start a fire and even mushing barnacles for food. Andrew even tried his barnacle slop…yuck. (But he would not eat the wild strawberries that Claire and Andrew found with CioCia Zosia.)
A couple of hours later, after Hannah helped to dig out a trench and the tide started to come back in, we managed to finagle the Fournado back into the water and made it to the SeaXII for immediate snacks and a much-deserved dinner!
7/18/2024 We had a gorgeous day! It was sunny and clear and warm! We started the day with a visit to Margerie Glacier, by Grand Pacific – which looked like a planet swirled with ice (unfortunately, it was prettier from far away).
On the way to find a place to anchor, it was calm and pretty enough that I could not resist trying out acro with Kathryn from the flybridge!
We anchored in Sandy Cove and took the Fournado to see the seals. They were pretty lifeless when we pulled up, so I said, “hey guys, show some life”. All of the sudden, something (us? birds?) set them off and they started moving and loudly barking.
We finished the day with CioCia Zosia taking Hannah and Kathryn for another unsuccessful fishing trip, and Claire and I taking a relaxing and quiet kayak ride. We were rewarded with a delicious steak dinner cooked by Paul when we all got back!
