September 11, 2004

September 11, 2004

Today is a cruising day. We spend the whole day at sea traveling from Seward 400 miles east across the Bay of Alaska. The distant shore to our left is a continuous line of tall mountains. This area is pretty inaccessible except by sea.

After lunch we sail into Yakatut Bay to observe Hubbard Glacier. Hubbard is in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and at 76 miles is the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska. As we sail toward Hubbard at the end of the bay we pass several small glaciers to our north. We finish right in front of Hubbard. It is a massive wall, seven miles wide, 400 feet high, dwarfing the cruise ships anchored here. Hubbard, nicknamed the Galloping Glacier, is the fastest moving on the continent. We spend the next couple of hours watching the continual calving of icebergs. With a thunderous crack, a large chunk of ice cleaves off exposing ice with a beautiful intense shade of blue. A glacier is a frozen river of ice that slowly creeps down out of the mountains. The pieces of ice we see breaking off are supposed to be 400 years old, having begun their life as a snowflake at the mountain top that many years ago. Despite global warming, Hubbard is actually getting longer.

While at Hubbard, we get a chance to also watch the ship’s rescue squad practice in the water. They are dressed in survival suits and seem to be having fun wallowing in the icy sea. But not everyone is enamored with the glacier. A bunch of kids play in the deck pool the entire time oblivious to the spectacle.