Glacier Bay National Park

1100 position 58-40N 136-07W. Heading north in Glacier Bay.

The weather gods continue to smile on M/V Thankful. Our crossing of Icy Strait yesterday was made in gentle winds and flat seas. The only bumps we felt were the wakes of boats headed in the other direction.

We crossed a shallow bar at the entrance to Glacier Bay, and on the chart it looked like an ancient glacial moraine. It turns out that's what it was. Back in the late eighteenth century, sixty five mile long Glacier Bay didn't even exist. It was one huge four thousand foot thick glacier that extended out into Icy Strait. The glacier has been receding ever since and the only permanent ice that remains is in the northernmost arms of the bay. That's where we are headed, and it will probably take us a couple of days to get there.

All maritime visitors to Glacier Bay National Park are required to go through an orientation at park headquarters near the entrance to the bay. We made it there just in time yesterday for the 2PM session, and afterwards we wandered around the lodge and visitors center for a couple of hours. We needed to kill some time so we wouldn't end up bucking an ebb tide heading up into the bay. Matt traded our crab for some halibut that another boat at the visitor's dock had caught earlier in the day.

At 5PM Thankful cast off from the visitor's center and headed north towards Beartrack Cove. We thought it would only take us two hours to get there, but we still had a little bit of tide against us most of the way and the distance was further than we had guessed. We passed humpback whales, otters, two cruise ships, and a dead seal and found Beartrack Cove empty when we arrived at 8PM. It was quiet all night long except for the nearly continuous sound of whales breathing in the bay outside of our anchorage. It is likely that we will continue to find mostly empty anchorages. Only twenty five boats are allowed into the park at any one time. Matt was lucky to score a five day pass for Thankful.

The crew of Thankful continues to overeat exquisite cuisine. Last night Matt did an expert job grilling short ribs that had soaked for a couple of days in a superb marinade that Vicki made. The sunset over the Fairweather mountain range to the west during dinner was stunning.

Glacier Bay is glassy this morning and the sun is shining as we continue north towards the ice. We will be passing close to Marble Island in a few minutes so the crew can look for Stellar sea lions on the rocks.