8-17 b

At Hubbard Glacier - they really are that blue.

Fortunately, the next day was just Hubbard Glacier day, and didn’t hit the glacier until 1 pm; figuratively speaking only, of course, ha ha. After sleeping in and eating followed by napping, we found our ship at Hubbard Glacier for a few hours mid-afternoon. The weather was perfect – overcast so not a glare on the glacier, but not foggy or bad weather. This glacier is the biggest one anywhere around, sits 400 feet above the water, and they guess 300-400 under the water. The cruise ship came in about a quarter mile from it, which is really quite close, and it extends out under the water. None of the other ships that came in got as close as ours – probably because our captain is Norwegian and a few little pieces of ice in the ocean are not a big deal for his part of the planet. The engines went quiet and everyone outside listened to Hubbard creak and crack, scanning the 4 miles of visible face for the chunk about to fall. “Calving,” it’s called. Pieces would break off and crash into the ice water below, causing a huge wave (but not even a ripple for our mammoth boat and her stabilizers), as everyone would rush to take stills and video shots. The ride in to the bay was very cold and only those of us dressed in ski stuff were really comfortable. The temperature drop is amazing coming in to the bay, but really if you think about it, it’s like zipping at 30 miles an hour into an area of fluid that has ice cubes bobbing in it. But when we stopped the boat at the glacier it was really fairly warm, because there was no wind. To warm us up, everywhere on deck there were staff members selling hot chocolate in commemorative Royal Caribbean mugs with whatever adult additive you choose; they’d push carts about the outside decks yelling “hot cocoa” like beer and peanut guys at the ballpark.

Little boat with people in it... big glacier... note circled area...

There's the same circled area farther away... BIG glacier!

Calving - the creak, thunder-noise, and finally crash of glacial ice we were all listening for! It did a lot of this while we were there.