The day began very very early on the ship – about 12:30 a.m. a wakeup call came over the PA for viewing of northern lights! Bleary-eyed and dressed in pajamas and warm jackets, people stumbled outside to watch the weirdly glowing, shifting green lights criss-cross the sky. After a few more hours of sleep, guests woke up to a beautiful sunrise light as the ship entered the Johns Hopkins Inlet. Lamplugh Glacier slid past, along with Mt. Cooper, named for the man who spearheaded the movement to protect Glacier Bay. A bald eagle took flight from an iceberg to the delight of photo enthusiasts onboard. Before breakfast, the Johns Hopkins Glacier came into view, backed by high mountain peaks of the Fairweathers. One of the most beautiful vistas in all of southeast Alaska, the scene did not disappoint with high checkered clouds and shadows. It was so amazing the stewards had to remind people to come inside for breakfast!
After breakfast, we enjoyed an extended visit at the face of the Johns Hopkins Glacier. Small chunks of ice bobbed in the water, hosting hundreds of harbor seals sprinkled across the ice like sausage links. One of the few advancing glaciers in Alaska, Johns Hopkins is moving at a rapid clip of 15 feet per day – and calving off almost an equal amount each day. Thus we were treated to an astounding round of calving, with huge sections of the glacier peeling off the face and massive shooters rising up from the depths below.
As we headed out of Johns Hopkins, park ranger Chelsea and Tlingit cultural interpreter Faith welcomed the group to Glacier Bay and presented an in-depth introduction to the park’s natural and cultural history. The rest of the morning was spent sailing through the upper reaches of Glacier Bay looking for wildlife and enjoying the (yet again) sunny weather. Lunch was interrupted by a family of brown bears in a salmon stream and a mountain goat running down the beach. The afternoon continued with more mountain goats sprinkled across the rocky hillside of Gloomy Knob, a brown bear eat salmon, and a pair of wolves wandering in the stream behind the bear.
Faith presented a program on the Tlingit culture and connection to Glacier Bay, Chelsea worked with the children on board to paint pictures with melted glacier ice, and also gave a talk on the birds of Glacier Bay. Humpback whales were spotted and as the afternoon turned towards evening we cruised past South Marble Island to see a large number of Stellar sea lions and an assortment of nesting birds, including puffins!
The evening concluded with a beautiful sunset over the Fairweather Mountains and a walk through the forest in Bartlett Cove.
