My time zones caught up with me this morning, and I slept like a baby until 8am. We were in the Tracy Arm this morning, about 2 or 3 miles away from the South Sawyer Glacier, and the plan was to spend the morning zodiacing and kayaking, and then have a relaxing afternoon of jumping into freezing cold water. 34 degrees to be exact.
Our family signed up for the early zodiac cruise, so we were out cruising by 8:30. David guided us toward the glacier, along one shore, and around some huge bergs. We got fairly close to some seals, but we didn’t want to scare any away so we stayed a decent distance from the ones lounging on the bergs. There are a few waterfalls that come down from the mountains into the sea there – one is full of sediment from the glacier – but they are beautiful and tranquil too.
We had good weather – outside temperature was probably around 50 – and the sun was shining, so just like in Glacier Bay, the sun was sparkling off of the sea like thousands of shimmering diamonds. It was so beautiful.
As we headed back to the boat, David gave us the chance to drive the zodiac. I was up first, and Jeff asked me to say a little something (this was all recorded for the video)… it went something like this: “well, we are in Alaska, and there is a boat… and there are people on the boat…” I also asked if I could do doughnuts, and then proceeded to scare my family when I revved a little too fast (be lucky you don’t ride in a car with me). Ben went next, and talked about why the ice looks so blue – let’s just say it has something to do with light and refracting, or something like that. Nick went next and Jeff asked him to talk about secession (of rocks). At first, he didn’t know quite what to say, but then said “in 1862, the south seceded from the north..” Jeff drove last while Ben recorded, and he actually did talk about secession of the rocks. What is secession you ask? Ask Jeff.
It’s a lot harder to control the zodiacs than the naturalists make it look… I really thought it would be easy, but I found that I really had to control my speed carefully or we would fly. As I demonstrated.
While the second group went out on their zodiac cruise, I uploaded my photos to the computer and selected my images for the guest slideshow. It took me awhile, because I had so many images, but I finally narrowed it down. Kayaking was next, and Ben and I went out in a double kayak. They are a lot harder to paddle than the singles, I think in part because you have to match your stroke with your second boater, and Ben and I were not in sync at all. We had a large distance in which we could kayak, so we were able to get up close and personal with a waterfall and small icebergs, and we got some cool photos of the glacier from sea level.
After lunch, and after the under 18ers were allowed to take a zodiac driving class, we prepped for the polar plunge. About 20 of us put on our bathing suits, gym shorts, whatever, and loaded up the zodiacs. Jeff, Pete and Carlos were in a second boat taking photos and filming us being stupid, but all in all it was a GREAT time. It was hysterical. Half of the family was on the first boat, so I had a birds eye view of Ben diving in with his camera, Nick flipping, and Sam doing a Superman belly flop. Oh – that was so funny and there are pictures somewhere…
I had Catie film my jump – it’s sideways, but it’s there – and I cannonballed with my hair flying out behind me. There are some great photos out there of our afternoon adventure. Some of the crew jumped too, and several of them even swam to icebergs and flopped on to them like baby seals. I would have done the jump again. Once I got over the initial shock of submerging my body into an ice pool, it was pretty fun. And as soon as we got back on to the zodiac, it felt like it was 90 degrees outside. I had been prepared to be cold, but I really wasn’t. I even lay out on the bow in the sun for a little bit when I went back onboard.
The plunge was our last excursion, and we began our sail back toward Juneau. It was only 2:30 in the afternoon, so most of us sat out in the sun on the top deck, watching the black bears we saw – a mama and her cubs – and taking the photo opportunity at the waterfall that captain inched us toward.
At 6, we had our last cocktail hour, during which we watched the group slideshow. It was so fun to see what parts of the trip different people found to be interesting. There were some great photos of whales, landscape, people… we had a great crew of photographers on board!!
After dinner, and our second happy birthday celebration of the trip (today was Papah, Bob and Darcy), people slowly peeled off for bed and I found myself wide awake and lounging around alone = perfect reading time. Around 1 am, one of the crew said that there were northern lights outside, so I went outside and sat on the aft deck watching them. I’ve never seen them before, and I really wanted to, so it was awesome that on my last night I got to. They were reaallllly faint, a brilliantly light jade green, and they fluctuated at around a 45 degree angle off the horizon. I took no photos, no video, nothing… just sat there and watched the show. I wrapped myself in 3 deck blankets and contemplated how vast the earth is, and how just being in this one little corner of the world makes me feel so tiny in comparison to everything else. At 3:30, when the dawn started to break, I went down to my cabin and slept.