Alaska Cruise to Benefit Home Hospice 2005

We stopped this morning and boarded a National Park Ranger. Throughout the day the ranger spoke over the shipwide public address system pointing out various features along the way. He also spoke about glaciers in general and the history of the glaciers we saw during our journey. When we finally got up way in the far reaches of the "Tarr Inlet" where the water was truly as glassy as I've ever seen, the captain killed as much of the noise as he could and we just sat there. We could hear the birds shrieking and we could hear the "white thunder" the Tlinget Indians talk about. White thunder is the loud cracking and popping that can be heard at a glacier. Glaciers are moving, dynamic things and are constantly changing. We didn't see any calving. We were told that calving (when a piece of glacier falls into the sea) mostly happens during warmer weather. It was fairly chilly while we were there.

After sitting still for a while, the captain turned the ship around so that the other side of the ship was facing the glacier. The glacier we were near is called "Margerie Glacier". We had a very cozy time out on the deck snuggled under blankets surrounded by God's beauty.

I did run in the morning, and we sat down and had another marvelous dinner, but all in all it was a quiet day.

Tomorrow, Skagway.