Rambling Journey: Alaska Cruise (more of our adventure after we got on the ship)

On May 28th we finished our land tour and journeyed to Whittier Alaska to board the Star Princess and head south to Vancouver Canada. We boarded in late afternoon and shortly after did our muster drill and set sail. Most of our trip would be through the inside passages. We were to go through Prince William Sound and on to many Glacier sites as well as stop overs at the towns of Skagway, Junneau, and Ketchikan. One of the island we sailed near was Hawkins Island but I was not able to recognize which one it was mainly because their were so many along the way.

We were all excited of the possibilities of all the Glaciers we would see along the way. Back in the late 80ies I had the opportunity to experience some of the Glaciers while flying over them on my way to Japan. It was amazing then and as it turned out even more amazing experiencing them from a private balcony on ship. Our first up close visual of a Glacier was Hubbard Glacier. We had to sail through Yakutat Bay to get there. We then back tracked and continued south to Glacier Bay where we experienced several Glaciers up close. Some of them were Margerie, Johns Hopkins, Lamplugh, and Reid Glaciers. I have included a few pictures of these amazing sites

A seal and gull riding a small ice burg just waiting for some food to surface

We were told before the trip that because of fog we might not see a lot of the Mts. and Glaciers. However it did not turn out that way as we had many days with full sunshine and no fog at all. The locals told us that the weather had been very different the last couple of years in that the low amount of snow and the high temperatures was not what they are use to.

The sad part is, how much each Glacier has and is melting away each and every day. We ask different Rangers that we came in contact with both on ship and at Ranger stations. What is causing this accelerated melting. We got a long and in depth explanation (to much to put here) that seemed to be saying, certain things are occurring that are affecting our atmosphere which in turn is causing change in what we have know as a normal climate for a this area ....... When ask more directly one Ranger said we only follow the research and facts. We don't want to make it political. A Glacier starts with snow, and lots of it, as snow accumulates over years it gets very heavy and turns into ice which is dense and heavy and in turn becomes a Glacier (which is a river of ice in motion.)......One disturbing statistic we heard while in Alaska was that the North Pole has some of the highest pollution in the world!

I was blown away by how close we would come to many of the Glaciers with the big ship. Also how they would do a 360 turn so all passengers would get a close look at the Glaciers. Some times they would do 3 or more 360ies.