Glacier Bay
The echoing impacts of ice on the hull are amplified in crew quarters on the lower deck. No alarm clock necessary today, no electronic chart plotting to identify our position. The stereophonic scraping tells me we are near a glacier, that one being Johns Hopkins of Glacier Bay National Park.
Above decks the sunrise was promising to dry us out from our previous days’ saturations. As it climbed over the mountainside a number of harbor seals enjoying the morning sun kept the National Geographic Sea Bird a good distance off the face. The sun kept rising and we kept sailing on to our second and third glaciers that morning, those being Margerie and the Grand Pacific, just around the corner in Tarr Inlet. Good examples of the diversity of glacial beauty, Margerie’s white tidewater face was amplified by the dark juxtaposition of Grand Pacific’s earthen grandeur.
Changing course, we shifted to the Eastern wall and headed through Russel Cut on our way to witness a macabre, yet intimate example of how life sustains itself in the wild. A humpback whale, dead now approximately four months, lay on a beach serving up a buffet for many life forms, not the least of which being our best brown bear sighting yet. This bear pawed, climbed, chewed, tore, shook, tugged, and altogether eviscerated this whale for any bite of malleable meat. Mid-meal he took a bath in the bay, giving us a delightful scene of wildlife at play.
Gloomy Knob gave us goats while the atmosphere began to hide our sun again. Misting rain teased us on our way back to the cove as we passed South Marble Island, home to Stellar’s sea lions and tufted puffins.
After dinner while docked at Barlett Cove, a twilight trail hike took us into the young woods near the mouth of the Bay. Glacial rebound and recession gave birth to these woods only 250 years or so ago, and as we walked deeper into the bay the woods got younger. While we pondered a glacial erratic, a porcupine pondered us, scampering up a tree to better see what these ponderers were on about.
The light left us as we left the dock, southbound into Icy Straight, underway into the short-lived night.
