Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

by Mike

No rain today! The sun started teasing us early in the day and came out for good in the afternoon. We could see the Fairweather Mountains about 50 miles away.

We weaved our way through miles and miles of ice on the way to Johns Hopkins inlet. Along the way we saw Reid Glacier, Lamplugh Glacier, Toyatte Glacier, Hoonah Glacier, Gilman Glacier, and finally Johns Hopkins Glacier. None were spectacular but all were interesting to see. Some of them were putting ice into the sea and some of them ended pretty far above the water and the ice melted before it hit the sea.

Next we headed up Tarr Inlet. There wasn’t as much ice to dodge, and weren’t as many glaciers along the way. At the end of the inlet were Pacific Glacier (dirty and ugly) and Margerie Glacier (pretty and blue).  A 966-foot Holland America cruise boat got there about the same time we did. They hovered next to the bigger ugly glacier while we hovered next to the pretty one.

There were lots of cracking noises while we waited for ice to break off. Lots of huge chunks of ice broke off. They were spectacular as they cracked and fell away into the water, splashing and making big waves. One especially big chunk came off. It was maybe 60 feet high and 20-30 feet wide. Fullerton got some good pictures of it. It’s hard to tell from the pictures how big it actually was. It was enormous.

We went to North Sandy Cove to anchor for the night in preparation for our last day in Glacier Bay. Although we have seen a total of only three other private boats so far, we are required to leave tomorrow to make room for more boats to come here (the guy pressured us to minimize our days – the girl told us they were not busy at all, with only maybe ten private boats expected (25 maximum private boats per day)).

Daily Cuisine:

Cinnamon rolls, sloppy joes, and fried rockfish got us through the day.