Ice can see for miles ... (or Livin' on glacial time ...)

... it's about 1:15pm Sunday as we cruise into Glacier Bay national park.  The weather is COLD (damn cold in fact), very overcast with occasionally rain & drizzle.  We are currently passing Queen's Inlet and will continue up as far as as Margerie Glacier.  and then turn around leaving Glacier Bay and bound for Skagway.

As I mentioned it is COLD ... three times so far today we have bundled up in pretty much every cold weather article of clothing, and ventured out on deck only to stay a few minutes, look at each other and silently agree "it's to darn cold, let's get back inside!!".  I am sure we have several more of these wardrobe changes to make today.

A couple of 'technical notes' ... the network on the ship is naturally a satellite hook up and thus very effected by weather ... it has been "down" a good bit the last couple of days and is making it hard if not impossible to upload many photos.  I promise I will continue to post "a few" in the gallery in the evenings, but due to the network speed and reliability given the weather it may be very few and I don't expect to be able to do much captioning until the weather and net improve.  I did make a direct link to the gallery under the "Blog List" on the right side of the blog page to hopefully make it easier for you to find the gallery.  

Carolyn typing now - We are currently leaving Glacier Bay.  The two glaciers we saw were spectacular but in very different ways.  The Grand Pacific Glacier is massive - over two miles wide.  Because the snow that should feed this glacier melts every year, it is receding  and as it has traveled down the mountain, it has picked up dirt and rock along the way.  Therefore, it is almost all black.  The other glacier we saw up close was the Margerie Glacier.  It is what we all think of as a glacier, it is mainly white with the crevasses a bright blue.  We were lucky enough to see several "calving" events while we were about 1/4 mile away from Margerie.  This is were the ice falls off the edge of the glacier and small  icebergs are formed.  Really quite spectacular.

Bade and I suited up in all of our warm clothes, yet one more time and ventured up to the top deck to get an excellent view of these glaciers.  I don't know what the temperature was but it was darn cold.  Not only was it cold, but it was raining and while the people around me didn't seem to think so - I know it was sleeting.  As the captain turned the ship, Margerie was now on the starboard side of the ship - the same side as our stateroom.  So we abandoned the top side and retired to our stateroom to enjoy the views from the warmth and dry of our cabin.  (Yes, we are wusses)  But we are warm and dry wusses. 

We are currently sailing up a small inlet to see another of these wonderful rivers of ice.  When my Dad and I did this trip, nine years ago, this was not possible as we were on a much bigger ship and would not have been able to get as close to the glaciers as we did today.

Last bit of info - as we were sitting in the stateroom, I looked up and there was a sea gull perched on the railing of our balcony.  He was much pleased with himself and was kind enough to stay long enough for us to get a couple of really good pictures.  Bade will post pictures as the internet allows.

That's about it for this day.  Will post again tomorrow after our day in Skagway.