Tracy Arm , Alaska
Flukes, flukes, flukes and more flukes… How DO you stretch your hamstrings when humpback whales are surfacing so often that you don’t want to look at your feet for even a second? This mornings’ stretch class followed three feeding whales in circles around the ship as they exhaled and inhaled with yogic mastery. “Bend to the right, breath, smile at the whales.” During breakfast, bald eagles floated by the starboard windows, perched on icebergs. There was ample motivation for an early rise on the last day of this extraordinary voyage.
Morning hikers delighted in marsh marigolds and spring beauties, the first flower of the spring, while others explored William’s Cove by kayak and Zodiac. The cobblestone beach was alive with barnacles and small snails leaving threads of slime behind their morning jaunts. After devouring mudslide cookies at lunch, it was hard to stay far from the bow. The ship crept so close to a magical waterfall that everyone took a step back and covered their cameras. But unbelievably, the best was still to come.
As we entered Tracy Arm, the water was choked with ice, making for slow progress. No one was in a hurry as the week of warm weather had brought forth countless, ephemeral cascades of water at every turn. We looked to shore, where glacial striation and dwindling, dwarfed trees marked evidence that the South Sawyer glacier had been here many times before us.
We had great looks at pigeon guillemots, gulls, bald eagles, and harlequin ducks on the cliffs and in the dappled water. Numerous hanging valleys and four black bears, the only ones seen on the trip, were spotted during our transit east. Eventually, we found ourselves in awe at he face of the North Sawyer glacier.
In Travels in Alaska, Muir described Tracy Arm as a “wild unfinished Yosemite.” He said its “domes swell against the sky in fine lines as lofty and as perfect in form as those in California valley, and rock-fronts stand forward, as sheer and as nobly sculpted. No ice-work that I have ever seen surpasses this, either in the magnitude of the features or effectiveness of composition.”
Stunning weather, multitudes of creatures, and the warm souls aboard the Sea Bird have made this a remarkable and unforgettable expedition.
Flukes, flukes, flukes and more flukes… How DO you stretch your hamstrings when humpback whales are surfacing so often that you don’t want to look at your feet for even a second? This mornings’ stretch class followed three feeding whales in circles around the ship as they exhaled and inhaled with yogic mastery. “Bend to the right, breath, smile at the whales.” During breakfast, bald eagles floated by the starboard windows, perched on icebergs. There was ample motivation for an early rise on the last day of this extraordinary voyage.
Morning hikers delighted in marsh marigolds and spring beauties, the first flower of the spring, while others explored William’s Cove by kayak and Zodiac. The cobblestone beach was alive with barnacles and small snails leaving threads of slime behind their morning jaunts. After devouring mudslide cookies at lunch, it was hard to stay far from the bow. The ship crept so close to a magical waterfall that everyone took a step back and covered their cameras. But unbelievably, the best was still to come.
As we entered Tracy Arm, the water was choked with ice, making for slow progress. No one was in a hurry as the week of warm weather had brought forth countless, ephemeral cascades of water at every turn. We looked to shore, where glacial striation and dwindling, dwarfed trees marked evidence that the South Sawyer glacier had been here many times before us.
We had great looks at pigeon guillemots, gulls, bald eagles, and harlequin ducks on the cliffs and in the dappled water. Numerous hanging valleys and four black bears, the only ones seen on the trip, were spotted during our transit east. Eventually, we found ourselves in awe at he face of the North Sawyer glacier.
In Travels in Alaska, Muir described Tracy Arm as a “wild unfinished Yosemite.” He said its “domes swell against the sky in fine lines as lofty and as perfect in form as those in California valley, and rock-fronts stand forward, as sheer and as nobly sculpted. No ice-work that I have ever seen surpasses this, either in the magnitude of the features or effectiveness of composition.”
Stunning weather, multitudes of creatures, and the warm souls aboard the Sea Bird have made this a remarkable and unforgettable expedition.
