GLACIERAMA

I guess every cruise has a high point, and Celebrity definitely saved the best for last on this one.  Today we had a full day of cruising, no port call, with Hubbard Glacier as the star attraction.  But first, just how did we get here?  The ship posts big maps of the intracoastal route that we took, unfortunately under glass so any random lights that are around bounce off and obscure details.  But these two (of four) give a good idea of the upper end of our route with most of our stops.  That’s Hubbard Glacier under the upper left light blotch.

Unfortunately, like our South America cruise, much of the inland passage steaming is done at night, so we don’t get to see some of the tighter maneuvers.  But, what we did see was well worth it.

My favorite spot on the Celebrity ships is the Cosmos Lounge, which is on the upper deck, facing forward over the bow.  They have a line of couches and easy chairs that face the windows, and it is pure heaven to sit there and watch the ship plow through the ocean.  Mercifully, during the day at least, they don’t pipe in any music, and everyone keeps rather low key, sipping tea, reading Kindles, and gazing out to sea.  That’s my kind of spa.

In the inset pic, we’re looking out the window early in the morning on our arrival at the arm that leads into Hubbard Glacier.  Hubbard is one of the very few glaciers that is still growing – the rest are retreating.  It’s about 82 miles long by 6 wide at its broadest, and 900 feet thick.  That’s a lot of ice!  Prior to the view above, we had left the larger Gulf of Alaska, and have traversed most of Yakutat Bay in fairly heavy fog, and are about to enter the smaller and narrower Disenchantment Bay.  At the end of that lies Hubbard.  We were a little bummed by the low clouds and general gloom.  Ah, not to worry.  As if on cue, the sky opened up, and there it was.

Did I mention it was c-c-c-c-old?  We were freezing, but had plenty of company.  The jostling for prime photo sites was brutal.  I managed to secure one early and then just camped there for a long while, my back to the hordes.

Once we got in closer, the captain would slowly revolve the ship so that everyone could get a view.  This resulted, natch, in everyone crowding one side, then a mad dash to the other.

But the resulting views were spectacular.  It’s hard to get a sense of scale of this mountain of ice without something man-made to compare with.  Nonetheless, this is impressive.

Right after this shot, I was fiddling with the camera when I heard a collective gasp from the crowd, followed a few seconds later by a big roar from the ice.  A big chunk of the glacier had calved off and fallen into the sea.  Natch, I missed it.  Rats.  Loni was watching the whole thing through the binoculars, living in the moment as we should.  Amazing was the operative comment.  That ice was rough, and as you can see, had we cruised in closer (a no no, unsafe), the calving face would have loomed far above the ship.  The literature for the height of the face is all over the map, but about 300-400 feet pops up often.

  Mike and Alia were off somewhere else, but John found us on deck.

After a couple of hours of viewing, we finally had to get underway and leave this marvel.

Just seeing these few clouds move in made us realize just how lucky we were to have hit this spot on such a spectacularly clear day.  We were happy campers, indeed.

Naturally, the only thing left to do after all this was to go inside and . . . eat! 

This was just a warming snack.  Lunch was extra good, perhaps because this was our next-to-last day aboard.  I had two helpings of a seafood brochette, mushroom soup, and a pear tart with ice cream.  Loni had salad, BBQ chicken over creamy grits/wilted chard, and a chocolate mousse over strawberries soaked in balsamic vinegar.  You rock, Celebrity!  We ate with a young couple from Manhattan, a couple our age from upstate N.Y., and an English teacher from Monrovia, CA.  The afternoon entertainment was a talk by the activity director about his 20 year career as a stunt man, which actually was pretty interesting.  Dinner was OK, but nothing to write about.  We left the kids to the music activities and bars, and we went off to finish packing.  Have to have our bags out in the hall by 10 pm, for an early morning disembarkation.  We were a little melancholy, as this week just went by too quickly.