And so without a second thought we were off to Alaska last Saturday for a seven day cruise aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Star.
Even packing was a breeze since we were informed that there would be no formal dinners scheduled and NCL's "Freestyle Cruising" meant that we had dinner on our own schedule. There was no need to wonder whether we would draw the Early Seating for dinner or have to dine later than normal if the luck of the draw had assigned us to the Late Seating. Best of all, I'd have an opportunity to try my new iPad "on the road."
The travel industry is full of paradoxes, absurdities, restrictions, fine print and illogic. Cruising embodies all of those to the highest degree. I was to experience that very shortly.
But that will be the subject of another post.
This post will be all about the highlight of this cruise, the hours spent gliding along the mirror smooth waters of the Tracy Arm Fjord amid magnificent scenery on the way to and from the Sawyer Glacier.
The remnants of a glacier retreat above the fjord.Rock formations stunned with their variety of shapes and colors. The reddish color ones looked somewhat like those mysterious monoliths that guard Easter Island in the Pacific.
Finally, Sawyer Glacier, the parallel moraines it is carrying along looking very much like tire tread marks!
5 comments:
Oooooh, it looks cold out there!!! Deliciously so, I must add!
Beautiful pix of this amazing world we live in :)
I love the little trickle of water coming down the U-shaped valleys. Unlike the deep V's of river-valleys here in Malaysia.
Did you disembark and walk on the glacier? Or am I stealing your thunder for your next post? ;)
Wow, Louis, such spectacular photos! The blue glacier on the lower right looks delicious, like a giant popsicle. I love the streams created by the melting glaciers. It's a sign that summer's here! Or it could be a sign that the Earth is warming at an ever-accelerating rate. Thanks for taking us on your fjord trip with you!
Hello Pat,
One only gets to look at this glacier from the ship. It would be dangerous to get near it because big chunks, sometimes as large as large highrise buildings break off the face and crash into the sea, a process called "calving". Calving is accompanied by a sound like a very loud shotgun blast. Even from a distance is it an awesome spectacle.
At some of the ports one can hire a helicopter to land on a glacier and walk on it, or ride a small plane over it, or join a tour that includes a dogsled ride on it.
Hi CO'78,
That characteristic blue color of glacier ice is spectacular and surprising. The cruiseships usually send out a small boat with a few crew members to retrieve a chunk that has broken off and is floating nearby so that passengers can scrutinize it from close up. In fact you can see the dinghy from our ship in the picture doing just that.
Earth warming is making some glaciers retreat more quickly than they have in the past, but those streams flow every year as the snow on the mountains thaws with the approach of summer. Over time they have carved incredibly long steep gullies in the granite from the mountaintops all the way to the sea. They can be quite spectacular torrents when the snow pack has been large and the thawing fast.
Wonderful!
Thank you for sharing this. I have never seen a glacier with my own eyes but advanced geography classes at secondary school introduced me to many exotic words. When you mentioned "moraines", it took me back and all the other words came following in a flood including "urstromtal" or glacial valley. I cannot remember us ever being taught about the phenomena of the Pitch Lake or mud volcanoes in Trinidad or even plate tectonics as it relates to the Caribbean but we certainly studied the lives of glaciers and their impacts on the landscape. My favourite photo is the rock face covered by rich green vegetation. What are those shrubs? I hope you take many more trips so we can travel vicariously through your accounts and photos.
Blessings
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