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.

SHGHAGWEI: LAND OF THE NORTH WINDS

Well, supposedly that’s what “Skagway” means in the tongue of the nearby Tlingit Natives in 1887 when Captain William Moore ventured up the Chilkoot Inlet and built a small cabin at the mouth of the Skagway River.  In ten years it became the largest city in Alaska.  Gold, son.  It long ago lost that title, but it’s still trading heavily on the gold rush image.  With a full time population of only 968, it’s a trip when four cruise ships dock at the same time.  Here’s 3 of them, with ours hidden behind the one on the left.

 

Skagway is essentially a one-street town (Broadway).  Although there are others, nearly all of the commercial sites lie along Broadway.  Here are the views in both directions:

And that’s it, folks!  The place was crawling with folks just like us – tourists from the ships.  I have to say that all of the local shopfolks were incredibly friendly, and never pushy for you to buy something.  I guess when you rely on a brief summer window for 95% of your business, you learn how to deal with people.  We strolled around and took in what sights there were.  This building was the most notable.  It’s the Arctic Brotherhood Hall, built in 1899 by a band of gold seekers that had met on the ship coming north.  The driftwood facade wasn’t added until 1900.  Four of our party are in this shot.  Where’s Waldo?

I had a shot of Loni and Alia in front of the “historic” Brass Pic, the “House Of Negotiable Affection.”  Unfortunately, it was too blurry, but the title was too good to ignore.  We visited the Moore cabin, which took about 5 minutes.  You get the picture.  There’s just not a lot there.

On the way back to the ship (lunch was calling), we passed this incredible snow-blower train engine.  I’ll bet that was a sight when it was cranking.  Today, you can book an excursion ride (at enormous rates) and take a scenic trip up the river.  We passed.

For all our RV friends, this is but one of several RV parks in Skagway, all offering full hookups.  They seemed pretty full when we walked by.  No Lazy Daze’s sighted.  I don’t remember which ship this was, but it’s a cool looker from the bow.  Ours is waaay behind it.

Once back on the ship, the kids decided to flake out by the inside spa.

I, however, had other ideas.  This is really what I like about cruising!

Scones with clotted (artery) cream, chocolate cake with coffee cream frosting.  Oooooooh.  I enjoyed (ahem) a selection of these as we made our way out of Skagway, leaving the other 3 ships at the docks.  A scrumptious way to end the day.

D’YOU KNOW JUNEAU?

Juneau must be the most quaint capital of all the U.S. states.  It’s really a small town, despite having the most geographical area of any capital.  That must take in a lot of zero or low population turf.  Save for the adjacent residential areas, you can walk around the whole place in a couple of hours.  The setting is drop-dead gorgeous, between the mountains and the sea, all done up in Gold Rush chic.  The shops were much like those in Ketchikan (and, as we would see, like all of our stops), and for us were almost entirely avoidable.  Shopping ain’t our thing.  But we like to stroll around and look.

After breakfast (eggs benedict for Loni) on the stern, we walked off the ship and right into town.  We got a tourist map and decided to see the government sights.  First up was the state office building, which was up a hill and had an observation deck that overlooked some of the city.  Even at that I couldn’t get much of a shot.  The building did have a very chatty and nice guard, who doubled as a font of tourist info.  He directed us to the oldest totem pole in Alaska and this odd looking brown bear.  Can you spot what’s wrong? 

Well, take a closer look at his legs.  When they built the display case and brought it for installation, they found that it was two feet short of the needed height.  Did they fix the case?  Nooooo.  Instead, they cut two feet off the legs of the poor beast, and installed his truncated bod in the case.  We also learned from the guard that across from Juneau lies Douglas Island, and beyond it is Admiralty Island with the largest concentration of brown bears in the world -- he said 5,000 of them, but multiple online sources say 1,600-- in only 5mi x 28mi!  They are referred to as “island grizzlies,” and are much larger than the mainland griz due to the more abundant food sources on and around the island.

OK, moving on.  Alaskan towns are surprisingly colorful, at least in the summer, and Juneau was no exception, with pocket parks, flower patches, and technicolor houses all around.

It’s also a lot of up and down, with stairways climbing and descending all over, including this rather aptly named one.

Both the governor’s mansion and the federal building were undergoing renovations, so we skipped those and stopped for peeks at the Catholic church and the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, the latter the oldest original in Alaska, both tiny.

We finished our walkabout with a stop at the Arts & Culture center, very much a home-grown operation, but where we found a lot of nifty arts and crafts by the locals, including a beautiful set of paper earrings that Loni couldn’t resist.  So, we spent some money after all.

The afternoon was devoted to a whale-watching cruise that was one of the ship’s add-on excursions.  Turned out to be a pretty good afternoon (understatement).  We took a bus to another harbor, where we boarded a catamaran-type boat.  Thank goodness the waters were peaceful since Loni is prone to seasickness on small craft.  She was armed with her wrist bands, which seemed to do the trick.  Off we went.  As you can see, we were enjoying quite balmy weather while the sun was out.

The landscape up here is just enormous, and the clear air allows for huge vistas as we traveled up the Stephens Passage.

We did manage to spot quite a few whales, but mostly distant views of tail flukes and spouts.  This is where I really miss the lack of a true telephoto on my Lumix LX100.  This is really a long shot brought closer by extensive cropping.

Not everything was large scale.  These seals were enjoying their tiny bit of island despite the clanging bell and constant bobbing.

Glaciers are alive and well in Alaska, and my favorite shot was this one showing two of them.

Thanks to the little boat for providing a sense of scale.  A closer view of one:

The sailors were having a terrific time.  Ole Dad doesn’t get into many shots.

For our kayaking friends, I thought these hardy souls were inspirational.  What a backdrop.  I think they were in a lot better shape than I was yesterday.

This was about a 3-4 hour trip, but our day wasn’t over yet.  After we offloaded, we boarded a bus to take us to the Mendenhall Glacier, 1.5 miles wide and 12 miles long.  Although that sounds impressive enough, there were markers there that showed that the glacier has hugely retreated from its former glory.  Global warming at work.  This is what it looks like from the beginning of the path that you can take over to those falls at the right.  For scale, that’s a horde of people standing at the base of Nugget Falls.

Nugget Falls is truly an impressive amount of water.

Although we’re only a few days into the trip, Alaska has proved to be an amazing experience already.  We’re thankful for the great weather that has allowed us to actually see its incredible vistas.  I’m more thankful to be sharing it with my love.

DEATH BY KAYAK

Our overnight passage from Ketchikan found us in foggy waters during breakfast.  We ate with JC, who had just finished speaking with Meghan and Isla in Phoenix.  All is well there.  We didn’t drop anchor until 10am, and the tenders started transporting passengers ashore.  No dockside here, as Icy Straits/Hoonah is even smaller than Ketchikan.  As our kayaking wasn’t until this afternoon, we stayed on board through lunch at noon, then took the boat into shore.  I’d been watching the resident whale, “Eddie,” lazily swimming around the ship on his way out of the harbor, but it was pretty tame stuff. Once ashore, we checked out the kayak place to make sure we knew where to go.  Having some time to kill, we took the local nature walk, a half-mile stroll.

Buoyed by this trek, we took a pic to commemorate the feat.

Time for the kayaking.  Loni and Alia decided to hike over to Hoonah, which is around that point behind my right arm.  That little white dot is a car going along the road.  A chat with some locals convinced them to take the shuttle, as there had been bear activity recently.  Hoonah is a village of 700 Lingit native people, with 1 general store, 1 hardware store, and 3 churches.  Loni reported later that the driver stopped to talk to an older man who had survived a bear attack the year prior, right in town on some steps between streets.  Yikes.  She and Alia spent the afternoon watching 3 master carvers at the Tribal Project Center, building a tribal house that will be installed near Glacier Nat’l park where the tribal lands once were.  They were carving red cedar totems that would hold up the roof.  Hmm.  Saw something very similar in New Zealand with the Maori.  Here, elders will sit around a pole with their hands on it, and describe to the carvers what visions they see, then the carvers create their images accordingly.  They showed off their wooden hats and the drums and rattles they use when singing, and even gave the gals some sample songs.  Afterwards, Loni and Alia made to return to the dock area, and noticed that the wind was now blowing hard and . . . what was that waaaay out in the bay that looked like struggling paddlers?

OK, back to “time for the kayaking.”  Our instruments of torture awaited in a polite row, and the henchmen fitted us in with spray skirts and instructions.  Is JC feeling for a steering wheel?

In the bottom pic of the collage above, we have just pulled in for our mid-way (and only) stop of the trip.  Up til now it has been fairly easy going, not too fast a pace, and with a mild tail wind.  Hmmmm.  Almost idyllic as the scenery glided by.

At one point, the guide asked if we wanted to check out his crab pots to see if he had caught anything.  It was only a minor detour, but we’d have to up the pace a bit afterwards to get back on time.  Everyone agreed to give it a go.  Once we got to the crabbing area, he yanked up a few pots before finding anything.  He then needed some assistance, and Mike volunteered.

Yeah, that’s a pretty nice catch.  Mike is grinning, but he wasn’t having any part of handling the critter.  We then headed back.  Remember that mild following breeze that made coming out so pleasant?  Well, it now was a brisk wind smack in our faces all the way back to the launch shore.  Hey.  This is supposed to be a celebration of my 70th birthday, not an invitation to a heart attack.  I am proud to say that I kept up (mostly) with the pack, all of whom were decades younger, until the final mile or so.  I was absolutely bushed.  At that point, a motor boat of the kayak company came out to see if anyone would like a tow the rest of the way.  Clearly, this was not their first rodeo.  Pride lasted a nanosecond, and I raised my paddle.  They tossed me a rope and I hitched my way back to the beach.  The boyos, meanwhile, decided to make a race out of it, so the three of us were equally exhausted when we rolled out of the kayaks onto the sand.  OK, so far I’ve hiked and paddled.  The rest of the trip, I’m ridin’.  But, you know, the pain was worth it.  This was a day any dad would kill for.

Catch As Ketchikan

(Groan)  OK, sorry about that pun, but it’s been a loooong time since I made the last post.  I won’t reveal how many months have passed, but it’s a good thing Loni kept a diary or this trip would be lost to memory.  I got up at 6am to go on deck and supervise the docking at Ketchikan, only to find out we’d already tied up, but the early light was, er, delightful. 

I did get to watch another ship do its maneuvers, as it came in, and found that we were butted up against another Celebrity ship that would be leaving tomorrow.  We’ll pull out this afternoon, at 3.  Ours looks pretty much like its sister.  Yikes, among the three boats there have to be 6,000+ passengers that will descend upon this tiny place.  Too much in too little.

We hit the breakfast buffets and opted for baguettes instead of croissants as a change of pace.  I give top marks to Celebrity for its food selection and preparation.  It’s the main thing that would keep me coming back when selecting a future cruise.  The kids aren’t much for early breakfasting, so we met them at 9 for disembarking.  Some other passenger had suggested that we take a cab to the start of the Deer Mountain trailhead and do the hike up to an overlook.  That sounded good, but getting a cab with three ships in port might be a problem, so a quick look at an area map and we decided we could walk it.  The road up was fairly steep, but doable, and at the trailhead we figured we had time for the overlook.  So, up, up, up we went.  The elevation gain was about 1500 feet in a mile of hiking.  Urg.  Stairmaster has nothing on this place.  JC found Loni a walking stick, and then picked one for himself as this is his first strenuous activity since breaking his leg.  We never did get any view of the city or the port, but there was a lovely panorama of the channels leading into the harbor (to the lower right in the photo) from the viewpoint.

The Intrepids.

We took in the view for a while, and I went further up the trail to see if there was a different view, but found nothing, so we turned around and headed down.  At the bottom, there is a river that runs through things, with some of the kitschy “old time” buildings lining it.

Loni’s Fitbit recorded our walk at a little over 7 miles round-trip, so we got some decent exercise in to burn off a few of those butterfat calories the ship was forcing on us.  Speaking of the ship, the thing looms hugely over the town as it sits at the dock.  The big “X” is Celebrity’s trademark.

Ketchikan was a pleasant diversion, but there’s really not a lot there.  This is just about the whole thing.  Quite pretty, though.

No food reports, as we were determined to milk every last dollar we had spent on the cruise, and ate a late lunch back on board.  Supposedly the “Salmon Capital Of The World,” but we didn’t see any in the stream.  We did see a horde of diamond shops.  You’d think they mined the things here.  On board, we had calamari salad and some Indian dishes.  I forced myself to eat an amazing citrus orange pudding on top of chocolate mousse.  Now we’re cruisin’!  After lunch we took in the naturalist’s (Dirk Younkerman – now there’s an adventurist’s name) talk about Icy Strait Point, our next stop where the boyos and I will do a kayak trip.  After lunch, the kids headed for the hot pools and Loni and I sat on the 4th deck dockside to watch us pull out

and head up channel. 

Very pretty country passing right next to us made for a pleasant couple of hours.  Can you spot the float plane flying along?

We managed to avoid attending the “History of Faberge” talk and the “opportunity to admire and purchase original creations.”  Spotted a few whales in the distance.  Dinner tonight didn’t go like clockwork, we were seated late, the food was a notch down from the usual, and I and the server locked horns over whether he could scare up a Boddington’s that was on the menu.  He claimed they didn’t have any in “his” bar and suggested a Bud or a Heineken.  Barf to the first and it ain’t the same to the second.  While he disappeared to no avail, I walked out to the bar just outside the dining room, got my Bod, and returned to his less-than-welcoming expression.  Tough.  I have to say that’s the only time I can recall that we had anything less than excellent service.  Afterwards, we went up to the Cosmos Lounge and played Hearts and “Pass the Pig,” a game I cannot adequately describe, but which is hilarious.  We quit at 10:30 when the ‘80’s Music Trivia Contest started.  Talk about high energy, the place was rocking.  I know nothing at all about 80’s music, but JC does, and he hustled down repeatedly to whisper in our team captain’s ear.  We had a grand time and our “team” was the winner, thanks I’m sure in no small part to JC’s acumen.