Cruising through Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaksa

Tracy Arm Fjord

Thursday June, 9, 2011

This is why you go on an Alaskan Cruise!  The scenery is breathtaking and the scale of the mountains, glaciers and icebergs is awe inspiring.  We sailed through Tracy Arm Fjord all the way to Sawyer Glacier, and then turned around and sailed back out. The whole journey took about 5 or 6 hours with the ship only going 6 knots. The waterway through the fjord winds and curves around the mountains and it is quite narrow, making it easy to see the shore on either side. 

Entering the narrow waterways of Tracy Arm Fjord. 

All the specks in the water are chunks of ice.

We saw our first iceberg just after entering the fjord. And we continued to see two or three at a time as we sailed.

First iceberg spotted.

More icebergs.

But the closer we sailed to the glacier, the more icebergs we saw. By the time we reached the cove where Sawyer Glacier was located, the water was sprinkled with icebergs all around. 

The cove with Sawyer Glacier in the background

From our seventh floor balcony, most of the icebergs looked quite small. But then you’d see a two-story tourist boat sail near one, go around it and disappear from view. Only then would you realize just how big the iceberg was – bigger than a small ship. And that was just the part of the iceberg we could see from the surface.  It certainly gave us a first-hand perspective of the phrase “The tip of the iceberg”.

This is one of the biggest icebergs we saw. It's probably 3-stories high.

We spent most of the day on the aft balcony with the rest of the family. The balcony was plenty big, with a couple of lounge chairs and 4 deck chairs. We also set up a tripod with a scope to better see the scenery up close.  

Jackson is looking for bears on shore. 

We'd have to wait til the next day before we saw one, though.

We had a ham radio with us that was scanning the marine channels. Whenever another ship was spotted nearby, we could hear the two captains talking to each other.  Most of the other ships were either fishing boats or double-decker tourist boats. But at one point we heard our captain say the Disney Wonder was approaching from behind.

The Disney Wonder coming around the bend.

Waving to our fellow cruisers on the Disney Wonder

Our ship maneuvered to one side of the water to allow it to pass.  I don’t think the two ships would normally be traveling through the fjord so close together.  But the medical emergency earlier in the day resulted in our ship being a little behind schedule.  Because of that delay, the Disney ship passed us and then parked right up next to the glacier per their schedule.  Since the cove was not big enough for two ships to maneuver and turn around in, we had to park further out and view the glacier from afar. There were also several icebergs floating in the cove with seal pups sunbathing on them and our captain didn’t want to risk disturbing or endangering them.  

The Disney Wonder at Sawyer Glacier

As we sailed throughout the fjord that day, the onboard Naturalist would make announcements whenever wildlife or something interesting was spotted.  In addition to the seal pups mentioned above, we also saw lots of bald eagles, mountain goats, and yes ---- we saw whales.

 

Let me just stop for a minute and say that I have a newfound respect and admiration for National Geographic photographers.  I have no idea how anyone manages to take a picture of a whale. By the time my brain registered that I had just seen a whale breach the surface and I reached for my camera, the whale would be gone.  And when I sat there with my camera trained on a spot where whales had been spotted, the whale would then breach the surface again somewhere else!  So although I don’t have any pictures of the whales we saw, the memories will last forever.

There was one whale in particular that we will never forget.  He kept breaching the surface just outside our balcony.  In fact, he did it so much that Jackson nicknamed him “Showoff”.  And even though I never captured  a picture of “Showoff”, I did manage to get some video of his blow. “Blow” is what Michelle, the naturalist, calls it when a whale sprays water from his spout. Throughout the day we saw lots of blows even when we didn’t see the actual whales.

See the spray of water from a whale on the right side.

I also want to mention that the day before when our captain gave a brief talk in the auditorium, he was introduced as the most senior captain in the entire Carnival fleet. Captain Roberto Volpi. So we knew we were in capable hands as our ship wove its way through the fjord skirting around the many icebergs.

Winding our way through Tracy arm Fjord

We ended our afternoon with a game of miniature golf on the top deck. I don’t think we’ll ever play another course with scenery as beautiful as this one!

Playing miniature golf on the top deck of the
Carnival Spirit as we sail through Tracy Arm Fjord

That evening we had another great dinner in the Empire Dining Room followed by a midnight snack of calzones and ice cream on the Lido Deck. I think we could get used to living like this!