Alaska: Glacier Bay Part Deux!

Click now for JiffNotes

Previously, on the Alaska trip--
Glacier Bay, Part 1

Sailing out from Margerie Glacier, we went by Lamplugh Glacier again. This one is much smaller, but the blues and teals were deeper.

 

The palm trees around the pool seem especially out of place.

 

Although, there were some people who stayed in the hot tubs THE ENTIRE TIME. (Once again, temperatures were about 40F!) Yikes!

Click for bigger, teal-ier colors.

 

 

 

Conditions were favorable for us that day; we got to sail back and see John Hopkins Glacier.

 

And Topeka! Yup, that's a glacier up there in the dip between the mountains. Also, I'm pretty sure there's a bear there somewhere, as our helpful park ranger on the intercom was saying, "If you look to the right of the boat, there is a bear...right by the triangular rock."

 

Ohhhhhh, the TRIANGULAR rock. Of course!

No, we never actually saw a bear. However, we did see eagles. If you click to embiggen this picture, you'll see them on the ice floe right in front.

 

In fact, we saw so many eagles, that things started to go like this:

HEY! What's that on that ice floe?!? Is that a sea otter?

Aw, it's just an eagle.

In fact, it started to sound a lot like "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!":

"What'd you see??"

=) "I saw a sea otter!"

=D "I saw a bear!"

=( "I saw a rock...er, eagle."

We did end up seeing some (extremely cute, squee-worthy) sea otters later, with their little paws tucked up to their chins, when we were leaving the park. But again, no zoom lens to speak of, so no pictures. They were visible with the binoculars (did I mention this before?? If you go to Alaska, ABSOLUTELY BRING BINOCULARS!!), but that's about it. I actually have tried taking pictures with the weensy camera through a binocular lens, but this works just about as well as you'd expect it to (i.e., NOT AT ALL).

Finally, we had to leave. The clouds lifted as we exited the park, and the whales began to wave hello.

 

Can you see them in the lower-left corner? (Click for bigger) It was really hilarious; when the whales started to show up, we were inside the forward lounge, looking out the windows and only half-listening to the "Who Wants to Be a Bazillionaire?" gameshow going on. Every time a whale tale appeared, there was a massive gasp, applause and rush to whichever side was seeing the whale. The poor crew member who was emceeing, upon seeing most of her audience had fled, started saying, "We are going to charge you extra for the whale-watching expedition!"'

After we went outside, I got to enjoy one perky whale who breached, over and over, for about five minutes! Again, this was a binoculars-only experience, but it was such fun to watch.

 

Unbelievable that all that mistiness was just a few miles away.

There is STILL MORE Alaska to come! But pictures should be much easier to wade through. So the post should be up sooner. BUT OF COURSE THAT IS NOT A PROMISE. =)

JiffNotes
Otters and eagles and whales, oh my!