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Alaska Cruise Review: Sea Bird

June 24, 2004

Glacier Bay National Park

When you hear the word “Alaska,” images of bears, grand mountain ranges, glaciers and even maybe killer and humpback whales come to mind. We were lucky enough to see all that and more today. The incredible sunny stretch of weather continued and we again awoke to calm waters and clear blue skies. We had picked up national park ranger Lara Condgon, our local guide for the day, from Bartlett Cove. During the morning we slowly cruised northwards up Glacier Bay seeing many humpback whales off in the distance. We stopped for a short while just off the Marbled Islands to see black-legged kittiwakes, pigeon guillemots, and pelagic cormorants all over the place. We also had a great opportunity to observe Steller sea lions roaring to each other while resting on the rocks along with great looks at tufted and horned puffins.

We left the Marbled Islands and slowly cruised over to Sandy Cove. We watched a black bear as it wandered through the sedge meadow and scrapped barnacles from rocks on the beach. Afterwards Laura gave a brief talk about the history of Glacier Bay National Park. We had to interrupt Laura’s talk with a sighting of killer whales. It was amazing to see the long black fins of the male killer whale as it sliced through the water while one of the calves breached a couple of times. The natural history staff agreed that given the dorsal fin shape and the group size, these were probably the uncommonly sighted transient killer whales. Transient killer whales have large ranges and feed on other marine mammals. Eventually we had to leave this group as they headed south; we continued north and Laura resumed her presentation.

In the mid-morning we were treated to a gastronomic delight of a brunch. Everyone has worked up quite an appetite while out on deck and thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful feast provided by the galley. After brunch we cruised towards our furthest north position in Glacier Bay, the Grand Pacific and Marjorie glaciers. Breathtaking is just about the best way to describe the 250 foot tall crevassed face of the Marjorie glacier. We spent a while just taking it all in and were lucky enough to see a couple of ice chunks, ten stories tall, crash into the turquoise blue waters.

During the afternoon we cruised slowly past the edge of the Lamplugh glacier and rounded Jaw Point, appropriately named because your jaw drops when you see the stunning John Hopkins glacier. We continued to slowly make our way back down Glacier Bay and the under 21 crowd learned about shipboard fire fighting techniques and learned sailor’s knots. Park ranger Laura gave an excellent presentation about the various animals that are found in Glacier Bay.

Just before dinner we stopped at Boulder Island for our first close look at sea otters. There is a large kelp bed surrounding this small island and we saw over 400 sea otters resting in the kelp, using rocks to smash open crab shells and even young ones snuggled up close to their mothers. After another delicious dinner we came alongside the dock at Bartlett Cove for a chance to get off the ship and enjoyed a nice evening stroll along a beautiful forest trail. Just another wonderful day in Alaska!

Author: Stephanie Martin, Naturalist; Photo: Chris Lindberg, Naturalist