During the night after Haines, we passed Juneau and went on down to the Tracy Arm Fjord to see glaciers from the cruise ship. Now this was what I’d pictured Alaska to be like! They opened up two viewing areas on the bow, and I spent the whole day out there. I could have taken thousands of pictures, but I restricted myself to only a roll and a half. The mountains on either side were so close that it looked like you could reach out and touch them and the water was a brilliant turquoise. The further in we got, the more ice floes we saw, some with seals napping on them.

I love the way this one shows the vertical geologic strata and the horizontal lines that the glacier left as it retreated. This whole fjord could make anyone a geology nut.

Finally, we got to see the glacier. The Captain had decided that there was too much ice in the water to go any further, but the bow snuck past the point and we could see both the glacier and the ice field. The stern couldn’t see it.

Turning the ship was interesting; I swear, it didn’t look like there was room for it to fit crosswise. But it did, and standing at the bow, it looked as if the stern was scraping new lines into the ravine walls. Falling into that water would not have been fun.

I watched us leave too, but I did that from a lower deck with a window and a beer. My nose was cold!

On the next morning, we woke up in Haines, having gone back down the coast and up into the Inside Passage. This time we were tied to the dock, so it was much easier to come and go from the ship.

The photographers were just a little annoying in making people pose as they left the ship, but they got a good one of me this time. I had a bad attitude in Sitka and didn’t see the point of having my picture taken by myself, but I got over it by Haines.

I waited until just before my tour left this time, as Haines seemed even smaller than Sitka, and then left the ship. This trip was an enclosed catamaran ride up to Glacier Point, where we took a bus up the hill, and then got outfitted for a canoe ride, and then had a short hike to the canoes. These were big plastic deals that held eleven or twelve people each, and for once, being alone worked in my favor. I got to sit in the single seat at the front of the boat and I got the best views, like this one:

The lake itself was just over freezing, being glacier runoff, and was full of silt. It looks like suspended drilling mud, and was probably similar. There were a few icebergs floating around and lots of smaller pieces of ice. It was like paddling around in a frapuccino.

We couldn’t get right up to the face of the glacier in case a piece calved on us or popped up from under water, but we got pretty close. We didn’t have to paddle the whole way; the canoes had a little outboard motor, but when we were close, we did so it was quiet and peaceful.

Getting back was fun; our bus driver/tour guide was driving with the door open because it was fairly warm, and all of a sudden stopped the bus in the middle of the single-track road and jumped out. He came back in with a sour berry that he wanted to show us, and then we trucked on back for our boat ride back to Haines.

The next two days we spent at sea, and we couldn’t even see the coastline. I was glad that I’d brought some books, and almost wished for my wastewater classes to keep me entertained on sea days. I had big plans of trying all sorts of different whiskeys to expand my horizons, but I found right off that I liked Jameson’s and stuck with that for most of the trip.

Two days after we left, we woke up in port at Sitka. It was raining and I was worried both about being on my own and getting my good camera wet, so I left it and brought my digital. That was a mistake, as I would have taken many more pictures with the good one, but I got a few. I left the ship early because I’m an impatient sort, and walked around the tow by myself. I found a crab feed and treated myself to half of a Dungeness, but I think the Alaskan ones aren’t quite as sweet as the Californians.

I’d explored the whole town and found myself finished way too early to go on my tour, but too late to get back to the ship and back. Sitka doesn’t have a big cruise ship pier, so we had to use the little lifeboats to tender back and forth from the ship to town. Town was really crowded too, as there were two other ships in the harbor and it’s not that big of a town to begin with.

Our ship is the one way in the back, just barely sticking out behind the blue and white one.

I sat on a bench near the pier and waited for my tour group to meet. Finally we did, and we were off on a wildlife-watching beach trek. First off, I spotted an otter cavorting in the water, and we went over to look at it. It let us get to within ten yards and squirmed around for a while before it decided it had had enough of us, so we went on to the beach.

This was a black sand beach on a medium-sized island. It was the first time I’ve ever been on a beach with no footprints, and the biologists with us were pretty knowledgeable.

Here she is with a live sea star that had washed up.

Eventually, we had to catch the boat again, but this time it was for whale watching. They hadn’t seen any in the sound lately, so we went out to sea a couple of miles. There were only eleven of us on a tour for fifty, so the crew was pretty lenient about letting us go out. The waves were really rough; it felt like a roller coaster the whole way, but I didn’t get sea sick at all for this. Eventually we started seeing spouts all around us, but scattered out over several miles. One humpback did come pretty close to the ship, but of course, I didn’t have my camera out. Just as I was going down to get it (and get out of the rain that had turned to sleet,) everyone else saw a whale breech out of the water, and I was pretty sorry that I’d missed it.

In all, the tour lasted about four hours and was totally worth it. We just made it back in time for our tour boat to pick up some stragglers at the dock and shuttle us all back to the cruise ship. Then it was time for more eating and drinking!

So on Friday, we were finally off, loaded onto three buses full of old fogies.

It took a while to get my particular old fogies loaded, as there were only two buses at first, and it didn’t look like out luggage was going to fit, but eventually we were moving. Some two hours later, we pulled into San Francisco and into the giant terminal next to the ship. The cruise people got Grampa a wheelchair and whisked him off while I stood in the endless line to get checked in. It must have gone faster than I thought though, because I beat them to the ship.

I immediately checked out my room and started exploring. My luggage was to be put in my room later in the day, so it was a good thing I brought a sweater—San Francisco’s always cold.

I was amazed at the tiny bathroom in the room, which was a little smaller than a standard hotel room, perfect for one person but a little crowded for two. I found Gramma and Grampa in time to go have a snack (along with everyone else on the entire ship) and then I wandered through the ship and finally found myself on the top to take pictures. We were taking off at five, so I went and got the good camera and staked out a spot that would be towards the city when we sailed. I met some nice people and took their pictures for them. I ended up running into them at least once a day on the whole cruise; they were seated at the table behind us in the dining room.

Only one tug boat was along for the ride—the ship backed out on her own thrusters. When the tug left us, it spun donuts and honked its horn to wave us off.

Going under the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty spectacular. Of course, I ran out of film just before we got far enough under to get a picture of the bridge with the city in the background, but I pointed out the scene to my new friends and they got one. It seemed that nobody was looking back, and most of the people missed that spectacular scene.

People walking on the bridge waved us off.

 

 

The last picture on the roll—the bridge in full sunlight.

As soon as we got out to sea, it started getting rough. I didn’t even think about taking my Dramamine until after dinner, when I was starting to regret eating, but I never was that seasick—just a little queasy. Only half of the people made it to dinner that night, and even fewer the next morning. Walking was a challenge, and even some of the crew members looked a little green around the gills. They said it was unusually rough, but meds and whiskey did just fine for me. Gramma and Grampa are old sailing dogs and they were fine, and the few kids on the ship were happily riding it like beach balls bouncing around in the surf. I guess my inner ear just didn’t expect so much motion out of what it thought was a giant hotel, because I don’t get seasick on smaller boats. It was very nice to be rocked to sleep at night though, and I slept sounder than I had in months.

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