This morning dawned bright with shimmering sunlight on the calm, glassy waters of Endicott Arm Fjord. We leisurely cruised up the fjord looking for wildlife, enjoying the spectacular scenery. Suddenly a minke whale was spotted. This whale is notorious for its furtive nature so we were surprised when it surfaced several times around National Geographic Sea Lion! This was a rare occurrence and everyone was very excited! Farther up the fjord, near the Dawes Glacier, inflatables were lowered and cruises in the ice began. Harbor porpoises rode our wake, harbor seals poked their heads up out of the water and Arctic terns flew around looking for fish. The Dawes Glacier was magnificent! Towers of blue ice rose up out of the water, waiting their turn to crash into the fjord. Culminating our day twenty brave people plunged into 38-degree water for a polar swim!
Soaked!!
By Charlotte Fisher, age 8
CRACK! The icy blue pillar splinters making a deafening sound.
Then you know what’s about to come.
CRASH! The fragment comes free from the rest of the glacier.
Slowly the piece plummets down… down… down.
BOOM! The loud satisfying noise comes as the base ice hits the bottom
of the fjord. Once you hear the sound of the bomb hitting the bottom of the sea,
You can brace yourself for this!
SPLASH! Like an explosion, the now clear ice,
shoots up from the freezing water
like a missile. The water rises and falls. The
disturbance causes little delicate
ripples far away from the calving, but anyone
close to it, will rock back and forth
by the waves in the water.
And finally… you’ll get SOAKED!!
