Alaska Cruise Day 4

We got up early this morning and went to the Windjammer for breakfast - today is Hubbard Glacier Day!

We entered Yakutat Bay around 8:30 am and got our first glimpse of Hubbard Glacier - this was going to be a awesome day even though the temperatures where in the 40's. I guess because we were close to so much ice.

Our captain said that he would get us as close to Hubbard Glacier as he could and he didn't fail us. We were within 500 yards of the unnamed glacier beside Hubbard and less than a mile from Hubbard Glacier itself. It looked like a short mile to me!

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Coming into the bay we started passing small icebergs, here and there, but the closer we got to the glacier the heavier the ice became. I was afraid that we wouldn't get close because of the ice flow, but we kept on going. We were outside at the rail and saw the ship brush against a rather large iceberg. You could hear it cracking and just a short while later up from below the water came a big chunk of ice making a loud whoosh and a big splash. It had broken off as the ship brushed against the iceberg. After getting as close as he could, the ships engines where shut down to allow us to hear the glacier moving - what a sound! Like thunder with squeaks. Also scary, in a way, to think about all that ice moving toward you. We also saw Hubbard Glacier calving. It was so awesome, much better in person than watching it on TV.

Our ship was the first into the bay so we got to stay the longest. The Celebrity Mercury and Holland America's Oosterdam were waiting for us to leave so they could go in. As we left, I looked back and noticed that the Celebrity ship was already heading out - they sure didn't get the view that we did - good job Captain.

The rest of the day we went to a couple of the activities and rested. I'm not sure why the days go so fast when you are at sea. We watched lots of whales playing in the waters of the Inside Passage late into the evening. It's so nice to have a private balcony, you don't have to worry about a front row seat for the action!

Pictures for the first four days are available for your viewing at: http://picasaweb.google.com/SchultzTravelPhotos