Tracy Arm
Today was a day filled with light and color, and also noise! At the day’s start we heard the unique “thunk!” sound of small icebergs hitting the side of the ship, and we knew that we were in tidewater glacier country. At the end of Tracy Arm, two great glaciers dump bergs into the sea.
Just after breakfast we hopped into Zodiacs for an intimate look at South Sawyer Glacier and its many bergs. Icebergs melt mostly beneath the surface, grow top-heavy, and roll. The result is an endless variety of sculpted forms. Imagination made them into swans, dinosaurs, whales, and craggy mountain ranges. We saw bergs in many colors. They were dirty grey and pristine white, and every sort of blue, from desert sky to the deepest shades of sapphire. All of these tones were manifest on a far grander scale in the glacier itself. We gaped in wonder at a hoary wall towering to ice spires 200 feet above the water! We heard the growl of jostling bergs, the squeak of flying gulls, and the slosh of the sudden seal’s dive. But all was overpowered by the great rumble of falling ice!
Later in the day, we cruised the length of Tracy Arm. Though we had left the glaciers behind, evidence of their proximity was all around us. Icebergs were common, and the seawater, laden with fine rock powder ground out by the glaciers, was a beautiful jade-green. Water tumbles everywhere down the steep sides of Tracy Arm. The Captain brought us right into a couple of them, so near that from the bow the rush and roar of the water seemed all encompassing.
Green filled our afternoon. Green water slid beneath our kayaks as we listened to the hissing sound of rain on the calm water. And we brushed aside green fronds of fern and hemlock as we strode through the dripping forest.
Through sight and sound, surrounded by falling ice or falling water or foliage, our introduction to the Northwest Coast was a rich one!
Today was a day filled with light and color, and also noise! At the day’s start we heard the unique “thunk!” sound of small icebergs hitting the side of the ship, and we knew that we were in tidewater glacier country. At the end of Tracy Arm, two great glaciers dump bergs into the sea.
Just after breakfast we hopped into Zodiacs for an intimate look at South Sawyer Glacier and its many bergs. Icebergs melt mostly beneath the surface, grow top-heavy, and roll. The result is an endless variety of sculpted forms. Imagination made them into swans, dinosaurs, whales, and craggy mountain ranges. We saw bergs in many colors. They were dirty grey and pristine white, and every sort of blue, from desert sky to the deepest shades of sapphire. All of these tones were manifest on a far grander scale in the glacier itself. We gaped in wonder at a hoary wall towering to ice spires 200 feet above the water! We heard the growl of jostling bergs, the squeak of flying gulls, and the slosh of the sudden seal’s dive. But all was overpowered by the great rumble of falling ice!
Later in the day, we cruised the length of Tracy Arm. Though we had left the glaciers behind, evidence of their proximity was all around us. Icebergs were common, and the seawater, laden with fine rock powder ground out by the glaciers, was a beautiful jade-green. Water tumbles everywhere down the steep sides of Tracy Arm. The Captain brought us right into a couple of them, so near that from the bow the rush and roar of the water seemed all encompassing.
Green filled our afternoon. Green water slid beneath our kayaks as we listened to the hissing sound of rain on the calm water. And we brushed aside green fronds of fern and hemlock as we strode through the dripping forest.
Through sight and sound, surrounded by falling ice or falling water or foliage, our introduction to the Northwest Coast was a rich one!
