Friday, September 14, 2012

Glacier Bay, Alaska

Nothing like a glacier to make you feel truly insignificant!

We cruised into Glacier Bay after picking up our National Park guides who provided commentary from the bridge. The most spectacular glacier that we saw was the Margerie glacier at the end of Tarr inlet. The very end of Tarr inlet is just about the border between Alaska and Canada.



The face is over a mile wide and 250 feet tall off the water. It is one of the few glaciers that is not retreating and it moves forward about 6 feet per day.
This made for incredible groans and creaks and splashes as sections calved into the water. The top ten feet of the inlet is freshwater because the glaciers are compressed snow which is freshwater and freshwater floats on salt water.

We saw seals lounging around on ice bergs. But, we're not going to talk about seeing whales, although some people did. We think the ones that live on our side of the ship had started their trip back to Hawaii already.









After all that cold weather and looking at snow and ice we had to warm ourselves up with some free drinks courtesy of the Captain (another Brit)!


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1 comment:

Molly said...

This is pretty, but a little too reminiscent of Titanic if you ask me!