Oh boy, let’s see if I can remember everything I wanted to say over the last two days.  With no internet access (well, there’s access, but if you have to ask you can’t afford it!) I have gotten a bit lazy about writing.  It’s only been two days, seems like ten in relaxation days.  

The first thing we noticed as we went to sea was that the sun actually goes down and stays down for a few hours now.  We were several hundred miles south of Fairbanks when we left and now will just continue south.  If it gets dark and clear we may actually see Aurora Borealis if we’re lucky.  Sunday morning we woke up, I ate breakfast in the cabin and then, as is typical of my first day on a cruise (I’ve only taken one other cruise, but already this seems to be a pattern) I went back to sleep for about three hours.  The gentle rocking of the boat, barely perceptible, is nevertheless enough to put me to sleep as if I’ve never slept before.  

When I finally rolled out of bed at noon, I found Al on the pool deck with our friends.  Plans were made to meet port side at 3 p.m. when we would be entering Yakutat Bay wherein lies Hubbard Glacier.  I started taking photos at the mouth of the bay, never dreaming that we were going to get as close to the glacier as we did.  I kept taking pictures, thinking “surely we won’t get any closer”  and yet we did.  There is probably no way my photographs/movies caught all that we saw. Fortunately the ship is more than happy to sell you a DVD of the actual day we were here, for a fair price, I may have to go for it just for the movies of the calving alone.  The glacier was calving like crazy, monster pieces of ice falling into the sea and sounding like thunder.  You could here “gunshots” and “thunder” even when you didn’t see anything, the ice cracking and falling behind the face of the glacier.  We were looking at a cross section of the glacier – we have hiked on a glacier in Banff Park in Canada, and the sight of the crevasses from this viewpoint validated what we have always been told – don’t fall in, we probably can’t get you out.  

We spend a bit of time on the bow of the boat, where it was crazy windy and cold and then realized the captain would be turning the boat around so that both sides of the boat could gaze at the glacier for an hour apiece.  We headed back to our balcony where it was a bit warmer although even with gloves on my fingers were as cold as a good winter’s day in Chicago.   It was “formal night” and people actually wear tuxes.  We threw on our glad rags and I put on a little jewelry and called it formal.   We sat next to a couple from England – the boat is lousy with Brits and Australians and this a.m.we had breakfast with a couple from New Zealand, not to mention the usual American suspects from all over the US.  We did not choose assigned seating (which is in the main dining room) but chose to go to different restaurants throughout the ship each night.  We have met a variety of travelers in this way and probably would not return to assigned seating again unless it was a family trip.  

As I write today we are in Glacier Bay. I am listening to a guide on the  ship TV.  More factoids: sometimes the part of the glacier that is underwater will calve and the resulting berg will pop up from under the surface.  Also, he is explaining that as a young fisherman he and his buddies would hop onto bigger bergs and play on them.  It was only later they learned that the center of gravity of a berg can change and it can suddenly roll over without warning.  Ah, youth, we have all done crazy stuff that we only later found out (or accepted) was dangerous – but hopping about on icebergs?  

Each day on this trip my expectations have been exceeded.  More than that, I have experienced things that weren’t even an expectation to begin with.  One of those is sailing through ice cubes of varying sizes to get close to the glacier.  By the time we neared the Hubbard we were surrounded by blue ice, clear ice, dirty ice (glaciers move dirt, don’t forget).  Sometimes we would pass little rivers of these ice chips and they click together and sound like a bunch of marbles rolling around together.  

Waterfalls abound on the green and rocky mountains that line Glacier Bay, they begin way at the top and make their way down to the bay.  I can hear them rushing, even though from my vantage point they seem like trickles. The water now is the blue green glacial color you see in all the Discovery Channel movies.  I can’t believe I’m here.  We did not rise early enough (we meant to, we really did…) to pay attention at the mouth of Glacier Bay which is where the whales hang out.  Apparently there were a few orcas.  We have spotted sea otters and as there is only one way out of here, hopefully we’ll get another chance.  At any rate we’re going on a whale watching excursion in Juneau so I’m not worried – you’re guaranteed to see whales there.  

The size of everything continues to amaze.  As we sail past the mountains that rise from the bay, they appear to be sailing past even higher mountains behind them.   3D vision is a wonderful thing!  For days now we have been traveling through hundreds of miles of land unspoiled by anything much.   However, I was commenting at breakfast that although this is wonderful, if I were driven to live somewhere in solitude I think it would be in a tropical clime.  I don’t quite understand the Drop City mindset (T.C. Boyle – great story about a hippie tribe who came up here to live).  A plug for T.C. Boyle – if you want to learn about cultures/parts of the world/history and want descriptions that was plunk you right smack dab in the middle of it, he’s your man.  He writes like Michener wrote, not a stone unturned, but also a little more modern in his style.  Anyway, back to my point – wait, more waterfalls, they are blowing my mind – just passing an impressive display of three or four, one of them quite large.  Ok, my POINT was that if I had to use an outhouse and live off the land I’d rather do it in Tahiti thank you very much.  It’s cold here for heaven’s sake!