We saw not just one, but two glaciers today! The day dawned gray and rainy, but we turned on the heater and made cappuccinos and all was right with the world. We were the second boat out of the cove and I have no idea where the first one out went, because we had Tracy Arm to ourselves for most of the trip up. When we reached the fork in the fjord, we found a 300-foot cruise ship sitting at the junction while their customers went to see the Sawyer Glacier up close in smaller boats. We chose to go up the arm with the South Sawyer Glacier first, and had that all to ourselves - along with a plethora of icebergs, seal moms and pups. The weather perked up, too, and the sunshine brought light and warmth.
It’s hard to convey the stunning landscape here. The scale is beyond words or pictures. I kept taking pictures today, and got many shots that I was happy with, but they don’t come near to doing this place justice.
We had morning tea by the South Sawyer Glacier and listened to the ice crack and groan. Since we didn’t want to get trapped by drifting ice as the tide changed, we didn’t linger too long, and headed back to the Sawyer Glacier. The icebergs in that branch of the Tracy Arm had cleared out, probably by the outgoing tide, so it was a much easier approach.
Excursion Zodiacs full of passengers from the cruise ship were scooting around in front of the glacier. Ryan and I were concerned we might have to rescue someone or recover bodies, if the glacier calved, they were so close. Here is a picture of one of the crazy tour groups—I don’t recommend getting this close, but it does a good job of showing the scale of the ice.
I’ve almost given up taking waterfall pictures, there are so many here, but these were particularly spectacular.
On the way back, Ryan was looking at an iceberg near shore through his binoculars, and spotted a bear eating seaweed on the steep, rocky shoreline. The bear didn’t seem too worried by us, so we scooted closer for some pictures. I know he looks concerned in my photos, but I took a ton of photos of his backside while he ate, waiting for him to notice us. I spared you the bear bottom pictures.
It was fairly late in the afternoon by the time we got back to the Tracy Arm Entrance Cove. We found an anchoring spot closer to shore this time, and Ryan spent the last part of the afternoon watching a brown bear browsing the shoreline through his binoculars. It’s a measure of how blasè we’ve become about bears that we couldn’t be bothered to get the dinghy down to see it more closely. There are only four other boats here tonight, so relatively quiet. Dinner was on the bbq—burgers and the two shrimp from Pybus Bay. Surf and Turf, you might say!
Tomorrow we go to Ford’s Terror, a branch of the Endicott Arm with a difficult entrance (hence the name). You can only go in at high slack because of the rocks and the current, so only twice every 24 hours. Tomorrow’s slack is around 10:45 AM, so we’ll time our departure to get there a little early to scope it out and be ready when the current dies down. Hopefully, none of our cove-mates will be going there tomorrow, but who knows. It’s highly lauded by those who have braved the entrance. We’ll stay there two nights in order to celebrate Ryan’s 60th birthday on Saturday.
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