Sailing through the Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska 2019/Carlos Pueblo

Sailing through the Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska 2019/Carlos Pueblo

The ship left Skagway in the early evening sailing through the inside passage of Alaska all night toward the world famous Glacier Bay National Park. When I check the map of this area, I get a better picture of what inside passage, the location of Juneau, Skagway, Hoonah, etc for the World Heritage site includes the Tongass National Forest and Icy Straight. During the night, the ship was wondering around the Lynn Canal from Skagway and turned into the Icy Strait to approach Point Gustavus and picking up a team of rangers of the Glacier Bay National Park Visitor Center to present the Park on Board. We were official on sail at the Bay used to be a river in 1680, covered by the Glacier all the way passing through the Visitor Center to the Icy Strait in 1750, formed a huge bay inward in 1880 and today according to four pictures on the official map of the National Park. We were doing a comfortable sight seen of the great scenery inside the temperature control cruise ship.

We can sit inside or stand outside to view the scenery, i.e. the deck 12 rear open Cafe, the entire deck 13, and the pedestrian path of deck 7. The ship opens up window seats during the day till 4:30 pm for the preparation of dinner business. The newer ships like Joy and Bliss even add additional observation lounge on entire deck 13 with seats and couches, and bar, etc. The global worming during the summer, forms water falls along the way with snow cap still vivid on the top. This is what we call fjord, a cliff of mountain directly stick into the sea. There several fjords existed where the cruise liners love to present to their customers like Norwegian fjords, South American fjords and Alaskan fjords. My prejudice is that Alaska is the most charming one of all.

The Captain  made the ship slowly turning around to make the direct view of the huge Glacier available to every one at every position on board. The main one is 5,130 sq. miles about the size of Connecticut, 760 statute miles, 1,410 feet deepest point. There are 1,040 various glaciers formed individually after all the warming with 50 named. A certain level of the color appears to light blue due to the light reflection on the ice. Many iceberg are floating on the bay with  one or two sea lions lying on it. I did see bears running on the shores. I was well prepared for the trip because of my previous experience. I was warm from the top of my head, neck hands, and a pair of boots on the ground. I have two cameras and a pair of binocular on hands. I nedd to learn how to use the camera manually instead of auto setting in order to catch a better picture with snow white color background.

I tell my adopted daughters how lucky they are to work on this route to see the most beautiful scenery on earth. I don't think that I would be tired of repeated visits if I have my next opportunity. We're going to visit another huge one glacier, the Habbard Glacier and after disembark at Sewer, Alaska finally and I'll embark to repeat again for another 7 days trip with identical route.