Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – Heading out of the Endicott Arm.
Along the way, we saw many places where spring runoff was carving paths down the mountains.
Join me for some photos, some thoughts, and a dash of "Techie" here and there.
Along the way, we saw many places where spring runoff was carving paths down the mountains.
Thirty miles from the beginning of the Endicott Arm Fjord, we arrived at the Dawes Glacier.
Yes, the scenery was beautiful, but I was expecting something else. TV shows always show zoomed-in views of glaciers, highlighting their majestic size. But what my eyes showed me when we arrived was a Minnesota shopping mall parking lot at the end of March after a very snowy winter. Except the "snow" at the glacier wasn't dirty gray with shopping carts sticking out of it.
About the time I was thinking these thoughts, the ship narrator reminded us that we were still half a mile away from the glacier at this, our closest point in the journey. Our perspective was distorted. In actuality, that wall of blue glacier is over 600 feet tall and half a mile wide!
As the ship was slowly turning around to leave, we heard cracking noises from the glacier. One giant piece calved off, and my husband saw it just as it hit the water.
The sun was out, and the ice was more plentiful the closer we got to the glacier. This was the view behind us.
Here is a close-up of the chunk of ice floating in the middle of today's scenic view. It is such a pretty blue color, especially with the sun shining through it.
As we approached the glacier, we saw increasing amounts of glacier flotsam floating in the fjord. This was an especially large chunk with an interesting honeycomb pattern.
Thursday's main event started at 4:30am, as we entered the 30-mile-long Endicott Arm Fjord. I slapped on warm clothes, grabbed a blanket, and went out on our patio to watch the beautiful scenery float by.
The air was crisp, and the water undulated like a vat of syrup instead of splashing. Fog hovered at various heights. It was so quiet and peaceful. This 30-mile trip to the Dawes Glacier was one of the best parts of the trip. More to come.
The evening entertainment was a theater show called Amade. Celebrity's description of Amade: "Experience how Mozart and the work of other classical composers inspire, evolve, and connect to modern music."
One of the things I enjoy about a cruise is the eclectic mix of people aboard. I'm suddenly thrust into the middle of a huge melting pot of people from around the world, each with their own languages, customs, and style of dress.
More than once, I saw a large group, possibly from China or Japan, sitting together. They would gather finger food on several plates and then serve themselves family-style. One day, we were sitting at a table waiting for the changeover to lunch service. The kitchen staff were busy loading up the stations with food and had plastic wrap on the outside to keep people from taking food early. When that same large group came through and saw that there was a huge bowl of lychees at one of the stations, they went crazy. They ripped through the plastic wrap and started grabbing lychees like it was a gold rush. It took a while for the kitchen staff to get things back under control again. The entertaining show was hilarious.
There were a variety of activities for the time we spent at sea. None of them interested us much, but it was fun to walk around, check things out, and take pictures.