Endicott Arm & Ford’s Terror
Small growlers could be heard under the ship’s hull as the National Geographic Sea Lion sailed through Endicott Arm. A lot more ice than we expected covered the water’s surface, an indication of the great activity of the glacier in past days. A bright sunny day revealed the distant mountain tops that tell us a story of massive glaciers that carved the landscape that we see today.
The first adventure of our journey was to explore Endicott Arm by Zodiacs. We made our way through the ice as we observed harbor seals breaking the water’s surface and after a few breaths disappearing back into the deep. We also had really good sightings of Harbor porpoises. These shy little marine mammals are usually seen in the distance, and today we had some really close ones, surfacing not far from our boats.
A special place that we rarely visit due to the currents is Ford’s Terror. The tidal changes produce a violent turbulence in the water most of the time, hence its name; and today the tides were perfect to allow us to enter and exit through fairly calm waters. The reason why we were so excited of being able to enter Ford’s Terror is the amazing scenery that we can see from our Zodiacs. Everything is so massive that it is challenging to have perspective of distances. Innumerable waterfalls adorned the massive rock walls. Some of these waterfalls emerge from distant glaciers at high altitude, and elegantly make their way all the way down to the sea water in the fjords.
Today we had the perfect introduction to Southeast Alaska. Traveling through Endicott Arm, we were able to experience the massive rock formations, the glacial ice and to gain good understanding of the fascinating story of forest succession.
