Day 4 - Cruise

Day 4 was different for us. We went from Juneau north a bit to Glacier Bay. They let a Park Ranger and a local liason for the native peoples on the ship to share information, answers questions, etc. We spent the whole day on the ship. We arrived at Glacier National park around 7am, but didn't arrive to the first glacier until about 10:30am.
The day was sunny, but a little windy on the deck. Everyone went out on the front decks. We were early and got a great place at the very front, and had fun watching the glacier. There were lots of little icebergs in the water, which became more numerous as we got closer. There were mountains rising up on both sides of the channel, although it was hazy further out from the fires.


As we got closer we could really see more detail. This is Marjorie Glacier. The face is around 300 feet high, and there were lots of little pieces falling off. Your eye would catch movement, and sometimes you could see it, or sometimes just the splash where you missed it. There was a point, and just behind the point we all saw a huge, long splash! It was so frustrating! It happened again before we got close enough, and once we could see that far side, of course nothing happened. The ship sat by the glacier for about an hour, and it was great. There is one spot where you can see what looks like water boiling up right at the base of the glacier. They said that was the outflow of melting water coming out. It also stirred up a lot of silt, and fish, and there were tons of seagulls and other birds feeding. The glacier moves about 6 feet a day.

We enjoyed talking to everyone around us as we watched for the big drop of ice.

That morning we all got announcements of another type. There was a request from the captain to help locate a lady who had not been seen since midnight the night before. She did get on the boat in Juneau, but was missing. They had her picture on the TV's and screens. They continued with announcements about every half hour for the next 4 or 5 hours. Finally they announced that it was presumed that she was no longer on the boat and that the coast guard would take up the search. As we found out the next day, her body was found around 4:30pm on Monday, about 12 miles from Juneau. We do know she had been having problems with the person she was traveling with, and had been drinking heavily and had to be cut off at the bar. Bits and pieces of the story seemed to come together as people talked about what happened the rest of the week, and as we got news from outside the ship.

Around noon we left Marjorie Glacier and headed back out the park. We went to another place called Johns Hopkins Inlet, and saw a different glacier. It was a little dirtier - we could see more layers of the dirt the glacier picks up, but it was neat also. We were surprised at how jagged the glaciers are, and how there are holes and spires. I always imagined it was like an ice field, smooth on top, and just shear at the edge. But there were caves, and towers. The ship has so many decks with great windows, and we had plenty of time to view all the glaciers, and the mountains with snow and glaciers higher up also. In the picture you can see the hole where the melted water is pouring out on this one.
We had lunch, and swam some in the afternoon. It was about 80deg this day. We had to move out of the sun so we wouldn't get burned!

We eventually went to dinner and found out a little more about our waiter, Toto. He is from Indonesia, the island of Java. He has a 9 month old and a 5 year old, and has been working about 5 years on the ship. He works for 11-12 months, 7 days a week, 11 hours a day, and then gets a month off. This is the same for most of the kitchen, waitstaff, and cabin stewards. They double as bartenders, or cleaning the decks, or whatever needs to be done.


Our cabin steward made a cute elephant today, and included Jenny's sunglasses and Kyler's bear. The kids loved it. We went and saw Bolt this evening instead of the show. It was a comedian, and we weren't sure how "family-friendly" he would be. Bolt was fun, and we went on to bed.