Alaska 2023 - Day 7

5/20/2023 (Saturday) 

This would be the final full day of our cruise. We were in Endicott Arm, heading toward the Dawson Glacier. This would be the only location overlap we would have with our 2017 UnCruise. 

At 6:30 am the Captain made a call that Orcas were near the boat. We went out and saw their fins a few times. It turned out to be an adult with young ones so we didn't pursue them and they left the area. 

Orcas

The early morning was foggy and overcast. As we moved up Endicott Arm we started seeing the amazing blue ice from the glacier.

Our schedule was a bit different today. Rather than the usual early breakfast, we would have brunch at 10:00. At the last minute we found out that they were offering a few engine room tours, so we signed up. It was a very compact (and loud!) engine room with two diesel main drives, about 500 HP each and two generators. The smaller generator runs at night and serves as a back-up to the larger one used during the day.

We continued making our way up the Endicott Arm, and finally rounded a point to see Dawson Glacier. 

At 1:40 we left on our skiff tour to the face of Dawson Glacier. By now the weather was very nice, with no rain and partly cloudy skies. We were well bundled up as the glacier makes its own wind and cold, but we were both fine. Our ship was parked about two miles back from the face and we approached to within 1/8 mile on the skiff. 

We spent about 30 minutes right in front of the glacier, just enjoying the views. There were several small calving events, but nothing spectacular. There were a few pictures taken including one of our skiff driver Rica, who was dressed up in a bear costume.  She was a big personality for sure!

Teri and Mark

Rica

Our guide Peter fished a chunk of ice out of the water and we examined it. It was really clear, and if held just the right way showed some amazing prismatic colors. 

On the way back we checked out the tortured geology of the rock in the area as well as the carving and polishing done by the glacier. There were several waterfalls in the area as well as a hanging glacier and a valley glacier. It was fun to compare the three types.

Hanging Glacier

Valley Glacier (way up in back)

We made our way back to the ship around 4:00. We got one last view of the Wilderness Discoverer with the Dawson Glacier in the background. A nice way to wrap up our trip. 

We had our final dinner tonight and received our disembarkation instructions. We would wake up at the dock in Juneau in the morning and leave the ship.  

Our final Alaska sunset

Next - Leaving the Wilderness Discoverer and heading home. 

Alaska 2023 - Day 6

5/19/2023 (Friday)

As forecast, we woke up to more typical southeastern Alaska weather. It was cool, overcast, and drizzly. Our captain had made a good call by reversing the cruise direction to put us in Glacier Bay National Park early in the week, as this would have been the day we arrived based on the original schedule. 

We chose a Tidepool Ecomeander as our morning activity. We departed the ship at 8:45 with Kelsie as our leader for the short shuttle to Wahlpole Island. 

A different group landing on shore

The timing was perfect, as we arrivied right at low tide and were able to find lots of Sea Stars, Sea Cucumbers, Barnacles, Limpets, Mussels, Sculpin, etc. 

Barnacles

Black Katy Chiton

Mark holding a tiny crab

Giant Sea Cucumber (maybe...)

Green Anemone

Mottled Sea Star

Teri holding a rock with eggs

The group puzzling over an ID

One fun thing was to stick the tip of your finger into a Green Anemone. They would close around it and kind of suck your finger. 

One thing that we learned is that many of the Sea Stars have six, rather than five legs. 

Six-legged Sea Stars on rock

We did see a couple of birds as well. Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones love to feed in the tidepools. They are the northern Pacific versions of the American Oystercatcher and Ruddy Turnstone that we have on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Black Oystercatcher

Black Turnstone

Black Oystercatcher

It was a very rich area and we could have stayed for hours finding and identifying (or not) creatures. But the tides in Alaska are relentless and the entire time we were on-shore the tide was coming in. So after a couple of hours we headed back to the ship to relax and warm up. 

Our afternoon activity was a Guided Kayak trip again with Kelsie. We circumnavigated Crow Island, which turned out to be quite a long paddle. Getting from the ship to the island, then all of the way around the island and back to the ship involved over two hours of paddling. We had a Humpback Whale blowing and surfacing around us for much of the first part of the trip. We saw several Bald Eagles and nests, also a Spotted Sandpiper, Belted Kingfisher and a group of Harlequin Ducks. With the drizzly weather there were a lot less pictures taken!

It was a good paddle and we stayed warm as we got plenty of exercise. 

Next - Endicott Arm and Dawson Glacier

Alaska 2023 - Day 5

5/18/2023 (Thursday) - Best weather yet of trip, with clear blue skies, little wind, and a forecast high of 75 degrees. We were told that the next two days would be cooler and rainy, which is the expected weather for Southeastern Alaska. But we'd had five days of perfect weather by this time so no complaints. Our view when we woke up:

Went out at 9:30 for a "Forest Poke". This was advertised as a less strenuous option to the "full-contact" bushwack that they were making sound very rugged.  Our Forest Poke turned out to be extremely mild, with only a couple hundred yards of walking. We landed on a beautiful sandy beach near the outlet of a rushing river. We explored the beach for a while and noticed that the tide was coming in very quickly.

The beach was flat so you could see the water crawling in over rocks and shells and advancing up the beach very steadily. We then walked on a game trail into the forest alongside the river, but the trail got a little tougher and some folks in our group were having difficulty with the terrain, so we turned back.

Teri and Mark next to the river

We had a few Bald Eagles and a pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes in the cove. 

Bald Eagle keeping watch

Barrow's Goldeneye pair

Most of the group was content to visit and look in their immediate area, so Teri and I went off to explore what tide pools we could find and spent some time watching the tide come into areas. We could start in a spot with dry feet and 5 minutes later be in three inches of water. We have about twenty years of "sand writing" pictures where Teri will write the location and year of a particular trip in the sand of a beach.  This one was tricky as the tide was coming in so fast she had trouble getting it written before it was washed away!

Alaska 2023

We were picked up about 11:15, at which point the beach was essentially gone. On the way back we pulled up near the base of the waterfall for photos. It was thunderously loud and was dropping massive amounts of water into the bay.  Lots of wind and mist also!

As we returned to the Wilderness Discoverer we saw that the kayaks were ready for the afternoon activities. At each location the crew deploys between two and four inflatable skiffs, and about 15 kayaks. And then has to re-load them at the end of the activity.  Sometimes this happens twice a day if the ship changes locations. A lot of work!

We headed out on our first open kayak of the trip at 2:30. Open kayak is when the paddlers are allowed to go wherever they want, within a designated bay or cove. We enjoy the guided kayak trips, but open kayak lets us go at our own pace, lingering near areas that are most interesting to us. More like we do when kayaking back home. 

We paddled up to the base of the waterfall where there was a lot of wind and mist, not to mention the noise. 

The scenery in this area was amazing. 

After visiting the waterfall we circled a couple of tiny islands and generally followed the shoreline of the cove.  Lots of small (quarter-sized) jellyfish in the water along with huge numbers of small fish, probably salmon. 

We got back on the ship and relaxed until dinner. Every afternoon at 3:00 they put out fresh-baked cookies at the bar. We enjoyed seeing what the flavor of the day would be. Sometimes we enjoyed them with Diet Coke, other times with hot chocolate. 

The evening meal concluded with announcements of celebrations including anniversaries, retirements, and birthdays. It was my birthday and they made me a small chocolate dessert that was very good. 

Later that evening they did the sales pitch for future trips, incentives, etc. We stayed in our room and listened on the speaker and were surprised when they asked who'd been on previous UnCruise trips and someone called out our names. I think they wanted us to speak up, but we weren't there!  Oops.

Next: Tidepool exploration and more kayaking.