20 August 2013; Glacier Bay, Alaska.

We had dark, rainy, clouds looming over the valleys east of the Fairweather mountain range but they remained where they were and it did not rain. Instead it became sunnier and sunnier while we approached Bartlett Cove Ranger station. Which was an interesting happening as the tides, and thus the currents were completely out of synch with the tide tables. It is a phenomenon that occurs occasionally, when the moon and the sun and the earth together are not exactly behaving as the calculations expect them to do. Last year we had a similar situation when there was the period of the “blue Moon” and the tides were more than 90 minutes off from what was predicted. That is a lot if you plan a safe passage through the Seymour Narrows and you find out that you are 90 minutes late. Today it was less dramatic but at the time that we were supposed to have slack tide (the change from ebb to flood) the ebb current was still running with 2 knots of velocity. It changed in time for our passage up the Bay and that was nice as a following current saves fuel.

The Westerdam passing us in Tarr Inlet, Glacier Bay. Photo: courtesy of Hotel Director Bert van den Macklenburgh.

On the southbound cruise we have a late arrival at the Ranger station; 10.00 hrs. instead of 07.00 hrs. this has to do with the fact that there are two cruise ships in the bay at the same time. As the regulations say that only one cruise ship is allowed in front of the Glacier at a time, the arrivals are spaced out. Thus the Westerdam came in at 07.00 hrs. and we followed at 10.00 hrs. We then meet around 11.00 when the Westerdam is sailing away from Marjorie Glacier and we are going there.

With the weather being so nice, it gave ample opportunity for extensive sightseeing as the views were extraordinarily good. With little ice to block the approach to Marjorie glacier I could sit at my favorite spot to watch the calving. This was the only thing in which we were let down; Marjorie was for the 2nd time not in the mood to put up a show. Having no ice in the Bay has the advantage that you can get where you want to go but the ice only gets in the bay by calving, so you cannot have it all I suppose.

Still the lack of ice gave me the chance to go all the way into the entrance of John Hopkins inlet. Until September 1 cannot go into the Inlet itself but we can stop at the corner and look into the bay. With good visibility that is always nice to do. With such good weather, read visibility, it was also worthwhile to pass by the Marbles. These are two islands, North Marble and South Marble located in the lower bay. Since 1985 the south island is occupied by a colony of Stellar Sea lions. Nobody really knows why they suddenly arrived there but since that time the population has grown from a 100 to more than 600 at times. So it looks like that they are there to stay.

When not feeding they lay on the white rocks (hence the name Marble Islands) and are thus clearly visible. Dark red or black against the white. Even without binoculars they are clearly visible. As a bonus we had a number of whales in the area including a mother and calf which were not in the slightest perturbed by our presence and sedately swam away from the ship. According to the Ranger the Calf was most likely born in January and we could easily see that while being only 8 months old, it already had the size of a large Freight truck. Better stay well clear if you are paddling around in the area in a Kayak, and of those we saw several as well. As a matter of fact two of them had to be rescued last night, as they had setup camp ashore in the upper bay and had left their kayak unsecured at the water’s edge. Not being familiar with the occurrence of Ebb and flood, the incoming flood had nicely lifted the kayak off the pebble beach and carried it away into the bay. We kept a good lookout along the beaches today, to see if we could find it. But we did not.

By 20.00 hrs. we were back at Bartlett Cove to see goodbye to our Rangers and then we sailed out of the Bay towards Haines. The weather forecast shows a mix of weather, so basically we will just have to wait and see what we get when we get there, which will be at 6 am tomorrow.