CRUISING HUBBARD GLACIER

Toasting our good friend from Australia, Peter Ibbotson.  He and I drank a few martinis on our 2012 South America cruise.

                     Goran arranged this veal Parmesan dinner last night.  Ivan is our server.

   Besides Rebecca & I, Goran and Rose-Mary (head of housekeeping) enjoyed the veal Parm.

                      We had smooth sailing last night.  Ocean is almost mirror-like now

At 11:00 am we started our turn into Yakutat Bay.  The Hubbard Glacier is located at the end of this bay.

HUBBARD GLACIER

Hubbard glacier is located in Yakutat Bay.  It is the largest single tide water glacier in the world.   A tide water glacier is one that ends in the ocean.  It is 76 miles long and 6 miles wide but we can only see 3 miles of the glacier face from our ship.  Hubbard glacier moves 3 to 5 feet per day.  It takes the ice 400 years to travel the 76 miles and break off “calve” in the water.  The face of the glacier that one can see is 400 to 500 feet high but there is another 1000 to 1200 feet of ice below the water.  If more than 10 feet of the “calved” ice floating in the bay is visible, it is called an iceberg.  Only 10% of the iceberg is above water so these pieces of ice are huge.  You all have probably seen the movie, “Titanic”, so now you know how hitting one of these icebergs can certainly damage a ship. 

We arrived 1.8 miles from the face of the glacier at 1:00 pm and departed at 2:00.  Our ship was the first cruise ship of the season to view the Hubbard Glacier.  It is a perfect day here weather-wise.  Sunny and 55F.  The sun was behind us so photography could not have been better either.  We spotted a few sea otters swimming by the ship on their backs.  We also got to see some "calving" (glacial ice breaking of the face of the glacier and falling into the water).  The mountains in the area are over 15,000 feet high.  The snow caps are so beautiful with the sun shining on them.  The captain turned the ship in a 360 degree circle so everyone would get a good view of the glacier.                                                      CLICKING ON THE PHOTOS WILL ENLARGE THEM.

     A ferry boat coming out of bay.  It was such a beautiful day they made detour in to see glacier.

                                             Taken about 4 miles from the glacier

                                      

                                          Too small to be considered an ice berg

                                                 Sea otter swimming past us

                                                       Swimming on its back

             Note the blue color of the glacial ice.  That color as air has been squeezed out of the ice.

The captain got us 1.8 miles from the face.

Telephoto lens got this

                                  This is an iceberg.  Remember 90% of it is below water.

Three photos showing "calving"

                           White splash is 200 feet high when the calved ice hit the water.

We are now continuing on to our next port of call, Juneau.  We will be arriving there at 7:00 am tomorrow.  We will be back out in the open ocean tonight so hoping it will be as smooth as last night. We have dinner reservations in Prime 7 (the steakhouse) for 7:30 pm.  After that we will be going to the third production show, Le Cirque Navigator.