Tracy Arm Fjord

Around 6am our ship ventured into Tracy Arm Fjord. Our room had a balcony so we spent the morning in our pj's 'ooh-ing' and 'aah-ing' at the scenery. A fjord is basically an area where a glacier has carved away the earth and left a deep inlet, which is filled with sea water and melted glacial ice. The water contains glacial 'silt', and is the most amazing blue turquoise color. The fjord "dead ends" at 2 glaciers (which used to be one glacier before it receded) South Sawyer Glacier and North Sawyer Glacier. There are dozens of waterfalls along the coast, and you can hear the rushing water on the ship. Notice how there is no "beach". The glacier carves the land and creates this solid rock face. This is Sawyer Island and in the distance is South Sawyer Glacier: Our ship coasted slowly through the fjord, with icebergs gently bumping against the sides. You could hear a "tonk!" when one of the larger ones hit the hull. Rob shouted "Iceberg Dead Ahead!" in an English accent from the movie Titanic. (Ok, maybe I said it, and the guy from Rochester on the balcony next to ours looked at me like I was crazy.)

The icebergs themselves are so pretty. They reflect the color blue. They call the larger ones like these "growlers". Remember that 90% of an iceberg is under the water, so this is a pretty big chunk of ice. I was amazed at how close we were to it. This is another iceberg:

This is me, bed head and all, in my jammies and a jacket on the balcony! Rob was a bit more put together in his turtle fur and vest.

We drank lots of hot coffee that morning!! Here is a short video taken from our balcony:

Tomorrow is the Alaskan capital city of Juneau and our river rafting adventure!