Cruising the Inside Passage – Hubbard Glacier

After the excitement of Anchorage, we boarded the Star Princess for our cruise to Vancouver down the Inside Passage.

We started the cruise with a sleep in on Sunday morning, and then went exploring to see what the pool situation was, so Linda could get some exercise in and work out some of her soreness.

Fortunately, there are 2 heated pools on the Sun deck (which is a bit optimistic – we haven’t seen the sun since we left Anchorage).

Swimming in one of them was an interesting experience – the ship was weaving a lot for some reason, which caused the water to slosh back and forth. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to manage swell and currents in a pool.

Today the ship cruised to Disenchantment Bay to attempt to see the Hubbard Glacier. An interesting trip in – the ship had to content with fog and icebergs, so even with 2 local pilots on board, we progressed at a snails pace but eventually arrived at the glacier an hour late.

Ok, they were only small icebergs compared to the ship, but there were lots of them.

Detail of an interesting iceberg. The black stripes are rock and soil scraped off the side of the valley as the glacier from which this chunk broke off, made it’s way down to the sea. Snow fell on top and was compressed to ice, then more dirt, etc.

Nevertheless we still managed to get a full hour viewing the glacier. Fortunately, there was a bit if a break in the rain and the light improved a bit, but it didn’t last long. Took heaps of photos in the hope that some of them will be ok… light was terrible. I think I’ll have to invest in a yellow filter or something – perhaps reducing the blue light will improve my photos.

Hubbard Glacier. It was overcast, sprinkling rain on and off, and misty. This is the clearest photo I have.

Managed to see about half a dozen calvings. This glacier is one of the few in the world that is still growing at the moment ( 2 feet per day! – it’s 6 miles wide and 600m high – that’s a lot of ice to move in a day ), which is hard to believe seeing the amount of calving activity. I don’t think that I managed to get photos of any, you get very little warning so you have to be looking at the tight place at the right time. You can hear them of course, but we were still far enough away that by the time you do, it’s all over bar the splashing.

The birth of a new iceberg. I missed the start but this is the second or third piece hitting the water

Some more splashing

Still more…

More…

Done?

Done

On the way out of the bay, I had an excellent view of the glacier from our cabin at the rear of the ship. Linda was enjoying a massage ( which she booked for 1 hour after we were supposed to have left the glacier ), so she’ll have to look at the photos.

At least the worst of the fog had lifted by the time we left, so I expect that the ship will be able to make up time for tomorrow’s cruise to Glacier Bay. Visibility got worse as the evening wore on, but we were out of the bay and away from icebergs, so we were still able to get along at a fair clip.