It was a bit of a gloomy day in the Yakutat, but in principle that is not too bad for viewing. It is great of course to visit in the glorious sunshine as it makes the Glacier look like Aspen on a bright day. But how often does the Yakutat with the glacier look like Aspen on a sunny day ? You have to be lucky to catch a real sunny day. So today the scenery looked the way it is supposed to look like. Lush and Green with bands of low hanging clouds between the mountains and chunks of ice in various colors all over the place.

Literally all over the place. In the last 24 hours the glacier had been really active and most of the bay was full with big and small pieces of ice. We were quite lucky however as there was a small opening on the Eastern side of the bay to reach up to the top. We had our regular Rangers on board and both Ed and Ted the elderly Indian interpreters were with us again as well. By the time we came up to the top of the bay, the ice was on the move, caused by the out flow of Russell Fjord located on the East side of Hubbard glacier. So much water is coming out of there, fed by snow and glacier melt, that it causes a current of up to 2 knots in front of the glacier. When the ocean tide flood reaches the upper bay, this current is pushed back and flows past the face of the glacier. It then pushes the ice coming from the glacier to the North West corner and normally leaves a nice open space on the Eastern side where we can sit.

The Millennium who was ahead of us by an hour, could therefore slip around Henke Island on the west side and reach the glacier face that way. By the time that we came closer, the flood had turned to ebb and the flow from Russell Fjord was now pushing the ice towards the East again. Right in front of the glacier is Henke Island about 1 mile distance from the Glacier front. The presence of Henke Island is both a blessing and a curse. If the bay is full of ice and we cannot get closer; it blocks the view of the glacier. When there is not too much ice, it quite often acts as a buffer and keeps the ice on its west side. That is what it did this time. There is a channel on the East side between Henke Island and the mainland which we can use if necessary. It is quite small and you have to be certain that there is no ice at the other side that can lock you in. But here the Millennium came in handy. They were already on the other side and they were coming out through the channel.

So we went in that way. There was a broad band of ice north of the channel but it was not so thick that I could not slowly push through it and then we sat in the open space created by that current coming out of Russell Fjord. With keeping the nose in the current, we could remain in position and let the guests have a good look at the glacier. From there we worked our way out again, retracing the route we used coming in.

It gave the guests a very good impression of what Yakutat Bay and Hubbard Glacier really looks like most of the year. Most guests found the ice navigating fascinating to see, with the ship dodging the large pieces of ice and pushing through the small rubble. It costs a lot of time to do this, as you have to go very slow and in the end we were an hour behind schedule back at the pilot station. Here the pilot, Rangers and Indians left us and we changed course to the west heading for our final port of call Seward. The wind in the mean time had died down completely and so had most of the ocean swell. As a result the Gulf of Alaska looked like a gently rippling silver foil with the Veendam cutting through it at full speed. Tomorrow we are in Seward, we will be on time and ready to start another cruise.