Whalesong Lodge Gustavus

... to Idaho Inlet. We sailed up the inlet, until dropping anchor near the river at the end which feeds into it. Although the wind kicked up, Kimber decided to lower the kayaks in the water and send us up the river to look for bears. We saw an enormous one just before we anchored. It was a brown bear (aka grizzly), that was grazing in the meadow. We hoped to see more after kayaking to a hiking spot.<br><br><br ...

... but weren't shy about being seen. We counted four of them and stayed with them for a while. When they appeared to be leaving the bay, we headed back to the boat. The crew hauled the kayaks out of the water, and we crossed Glacier Bay to view a Stellar sea lion haul out. This is where they hang out, sun, and play. Breeding grounds are in a different location. There were at least a hundred sea lions groaning in the distance, as we approached. They were on the rock face and swimming in the ...

... mostly on one side. On the other hand, the Grand Pacific looks like a big dirt mound, winding its way down the valley to the sea. The Grand Pacific was the glacier which was responsible for carving out the national park. In the late 1700's, Grand Pacific reached the Icy Strait, which is now the gateway to the park and near Gustavus; however, it has retreated 65 miles to its current position. At some point in the 1920's it retreated all the way ...

... had a cat named Skylar when I was a kid, so it's hard to look at him, without imaging those cute furry ears); Kimber, the owner/naturalist/guide/veterinarian/bio logist; and our favorite, Cheffy, aka Linda.<br> We started with an orientation to the boat and a lecture on boat safety. We are aboard a WWII mine sweeper that is in fabulous condition. Deb and I are bunking on the top deck, just behind the wheelhouse. The berth is about the size of my new cubicle, with a set of ...

... a large glacier and dug such a deep trench, the Margery glacier nearby no longer merges seamlessly with the Northern Pacific, but instead has a partially-submerged cliff to fall off of, so calves icebergs rather spectacularly. There were some truly enormous pieces of ice on the front of it that looked on the verge of going, but we 'only' got to see some two-story-building-sized pieces of ice calving off.<br>

... so everyone can get to see. We were privileged to see a major event where the glacier calved a very large growler. Now picture a couple thousand people cheering this and you get the idea of the popularity. The temperature varied between 40's and 50's. The sky would open up, dump rain, follow by fog followed by sun just to keep the photography interesting.

... 1750. The explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait, at the south end of Glacier Bay, choked with ice in 1794. Glacier Bay itself was almost entirely iced over. In 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay, a distance of around forty-eight miles. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier was at the head of Tarr Inlet about 100 km (65 miles ...

Today we are cruising through the Gulf of Alaska, which borders one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the world, the Wrangell - St Elias National Park and Preserve. We went up to the bridge which was interesting. We are cruising ...

... the ship were quite dirty, containing silt, dirt and even brick size rocks. The rocks in the glacier caused the grounding down of the mountains to form the valleys. We saw horizontal lines along the cliff face where rocks had been dragged by the glacier. The waters around here are very cloudy/milky from the sediments (glacier flour) bought down by the glacier. Someone on the catamaran picked up a big chunk of ...

... a couple of days after. The facial was nice. Of course in addition to the outrageous prices for the massage came the push to sell "products". Ok so I caved. I bought some aromatherapy oil for $61.00. The stuff really stinks! I´m not sure I´ll ever use it. Hello eBay? I was totally ticked at myself for being such a wuss and to top it off, I went around most of the day smelling funny and with greasy hair from the massage oil. We came back to the ship and slept ...