Day Ten-- Sailing and Hubbard Glacier

We awoke to the ship slowing as it approached the bay where two Glaciers Victoria and Hubbard come together at the sea. Hubbard is the largest Glacier that dumps into the sea and is 76 miles long and 7 miles wide. At 10 miles out from the Glacier you felt like you were right on top of it. It is 300 or more feet high from the water level.












Room service was ordered the night before and the kids piled on the bed with Janie watching through our balcony window as we neared the glacier. We saw a lot of Sea Lions on the icebergs we passed along the way. The surrounding mountains are a sight in their own right, but been on a ship going right up to the Glacier wall was…..well just hard to describe.

The captain was able to bring the ship to within 600 feet the closet of the season, so combined with sunny partly cloudy sky, it was just awesome. We were able to witness several icebergs calf off the front. It makes very large cracking noise and then the rumble like thunder during a storm and called white thunder. You can see the whole ice pack rise and fall from the wave created by the ice falling into the water. Just plain ole awesome!!

We then headed up for Breakfast and back to our rooms to start the packing routine. We have to put our bags out tonight for pickup by the stewards. We depart the ship at 7:00 a.m. the next day. Dad went to the gym, Drake to hot tub and Janie and Logan went to listen to the captain tell them all about the ship and answer cruise questions. They told us at lunch that this huge ship is only 27 feet under the water and rises 170 feet above the water and 28 mph is the top speed of this ship. The fastest we have gone has been 23 mph. While working out Dad saw porpoises and during lunch we got to see some whales off the star board side.

Then we were all off to the Windjammer again for lunch and back to the rooms to relax before we clean up for the last performance for the trip at 7:00. More porpoises were off the port side of the ship this time. We can not begin to thank the stars for how blessed our weather and ability to see wildlife has been on this trip. I just spotted some penguins from our balcony room, wow…

Janie here…After the variety show we headed up for our last dinner in the dining room but stopped for a casual family picture. Sara and I arrived first and the photographer asked us to take off our shoes and socks for the pictures. I knew then, that I would have all three guys rolling their eyes and giving me the “look”. Yep, I was right with Jeff giving me the most “looks”. The last picture was with Jeff lying on the floor with my head on top of his, then the boys and then Sara. We thought that would not be a picture that would be any good but it turned out great. Thanks guys and I will take all the “looks” for getting a couple of great pictures of our family. Our 7:00 a.m. departure will come real early tomorrow when we debark the ship and hop on a chartered bus to Talkeetna Lodge.

We will post pictures later!