July 5 –Margerie Glacier to Blue Mouse Cove
Spectacular is a word that too
often is overused ... but I can think of no better word to describe what we saw
at Margerie Glacier.
Thanks to Roland’s foresight, we
pulled anchor at 6:50 and had an early start to get to Margerie Glacier so we
could beat the cruise ships.
Margerie Glacier, 1 mile wide with
a face towering 250 feet above sea level, is perhaps the most stunning and
active glacier in Glacier Bay. And a popular destination for cruise ships. We
knew there was a good chance we’d see some calving ... and we had an eyeful,
thankfully with no one blocking our view.
We floated about a half mile from
the face of the glacier for at least 2 hours taking photo after photo – during
which we saw much of the face change due to so much calving, all signaled by a
booming roar just before the ice began to fall. Sometimes entire portions of
the face dropped into the water ... creating towering sprays of water at the bottom
of the face and large swells minutes later that rocked us on Engelenbak.
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| Note the progression of falling ice and change of face in these photos ... |
About 1½ hours after we arrived
the Holland America Line Statendam came
in behind us. The captain hailed us on the radio and ever so politely told us
not to worry ... he’d just be a comfortable distance behind us. Very nice, and
not what we’d expected.
We left around 11:30, with cold
fingers and toes, but hundreds of amazing photos. We captured a shot of the Statendam moving over to the glacier
after we left ... providing great perspective.
Heading back down the west arm we
passed Lamplugh and Johns Hopkins Glaciers, before dropping anchor in Blue Mouse Cove at 4 p.m.
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