After traveling through the night south from Juneau, we woke to the dramatic cliffs of Tracy Arm fiord. We watched icebergs and bergy bits float by the windows during breakfast, hinting at the adventures in store for the day. The morning rolled onwards as we enjoyed coffee on the bow and watched the steep cliffs, hanging valleys, snowfields, streams, and waterfalls pass by.
We used our morning hours to orient ourselves to the National Geographic Sea Bird, our home for the week, and to learn more about the hiking, kayaking, and inflatable boat excursions in the upcoming week. After Ian introduced us to the art of wilderness photography, the crew turned the boat around and we traveled back along Tracy Arm and then further south into Endicott Arm. Despite our intentions to reach Dawes Glacier by midday, we made time to stop along the way to admire waterfalls and observe several black bears foraging along the shore. Those of us up on the bow familiarized ourselves with the local sea birds, including marbled murrelets, mergansers, mew gulls, surf scoters, and pigeon guillemots.
Immediately after lunch, we rounded a bend around a massive glacially polished mountain and were greeted with the cheery blue face of the Dawes Glacier. The first round of adventurers loaded up into our trusty expedition vessels and headed out to get a closer look at the icy display. As we wound our way further up the fiord, we stopped to get a closer look at the waterfalls spilling out of the hanging valleys. Harbor seals played in the spray below the waterfalls while arctic terns danced above.
The sheer enormity of the glacier started to sink in as we watched pieces of ice the size of school busses and small buildings fall into the ocean and send out rolling waves over 2 meters tall. Mesmerized by the magnitude of force and the deep blue textures, we almost forgot to look behind us and take in the beautifully carved landscape rising up from the sea, dwarfing the National Geographic Sea Bird and reminding us just how small we really are. Later in the evening, we were bid farewell and goodnight, we almost forgot to look behind us and take in the beautiful humpback whale with a backdrop of dusky sunset pastels.
