CRUISE WEST TRAVELOGUE NO. 7 - TRACY ARM FJORD AND TWIN SAWYER GLACIERS

CRUISE WEST TRAVELOGUE NO. y

SPIRIT OF YORKTOWN

GOLD RUSH INSIDE PASSAGE – JUNEAU TO SEATTLE

August 15, 2010 to August 25, 2010


FREDERICK SOUND, TRACY ARM FJORD & TWIN SAWYER GLACIERS

Knowing that we were traveling into an area that we have never been before, we both got up early and headed down for our light breakfast and early morning coffee. We were greeted by a lounge full of fellow passengers all with the same thing in mind. We had multiple humpback whale sightings while we traveled along Kupreanof Island through Holkham Bay and in to Tracy Arm Fjord. Tracy Arm Fjord consists of two fjords that are each about 30 miles long and is home to the Twin Sawyer Glaciers - North Sawyer Glacier and South Sawyer Glacier. Today we traveled to the South Glacier.

We had our first sighting of a goat on a hillside high above us. There are so many beautiful waterfalls that we passed along the way it was incredible. Two of the most beautiful falls were Icy Falls and Hole in the Wall Falls – both of which the Captain maneuvered the ship right up to the face of and everyone on the bow of the boat got wet from the mist. As we traveled further back we passed the Carnival Spirit and Cruise West’s Spirit of Discovery. Passengers from all three vessels were waving to each other as we passed each other.

We began to see several large icebergs floating in the waters around us and then when we turned the final corner before us was an amazing wall of ice. The face of South Sawyer Glacier is about half a mile across with spires hundreds of feet high in the sky. The brilliant deep blue of the freshly exposed ice on the glacier was nothing short of spectacular. I have never seen such blue ice nor had I ever been that close to a glacier before. The Captain stayed at the face of the glacier for quite a long time, and then David told us that if we looked to our right we would see hundreds of harbor seals basking in the warm sun on all of the “bergie bits” in the waters below the glacier. Because the water was so thick with icebergs at this point, the Captain had to keep his distance from them.

When it was time for us to leave, we traveled down the fjord to the place where we had finally turned and could see the glacier and the Yorktown stopped. They announced that Alyssa was going to go off the ship with two other crew members to bring us a sample of a “bergie bit” and that it would be on display in the lounge. She took off in a rubber dinghy and brought back two samples for us to see. They were both about 24” thick. You could actually see the ice crystal patterns in the dense ice. It was amazing to see this so close. They looked almost like a pattern had been stamped into them. Common sense told you that wasn’t possible!

After dinner David told us we would travel through the Wrangell Narrows early tomorrow morning and would pass Five Finger Island Lighthouse. We would be in Frederick Sound, one of the best feeding grounds for humpback whales – and then we would travel on to Petersburg. Guess who was getting up early again in the morning?!