Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier was breathtaking. Due to the large ice bergs near the glacier, the ship was only able to get within seven miles of the glacier. I can not imagine how massive it would have appeared if we were within a mile or two. Hubbard Glacier was six miles wide and we were told the ice that is at its mouth was 400 years old. As we approached the glacier, the ship entered what is called the ice box. The ice box was full of thousands of ice bergs. It is hard to understand how big these ice bergs are because there is nothing to reference there size. The pictures speak for themselves.

Day Two

After sailing through the night, our first stop was Hoonah, Alaska which is located on Icy Strait. When we disembarked and arrived on shore the tide was out. Apparently this was a super tide and it allowed us to get up close and personal with marine life that we might not have otherwise seen that included live barnacles, muscles, snails, anemone and kelp. Peter and I found it fascinating. While in Hoonah, we took a tram ride through a temperate rainforest which is part of the Tongass National Forest.

Our stateroom

Our stateroom was 200 sq. feet but as you can see by the picture, it seems much bigger than that because of the balcony. We really enjoyed the balcony. There were so many things that we saw just sitting on the balcony or from the sofa. Since we were so far north, it was daylight until almost 11:00 several nights and the sun rose before 5:00 a.m. each morning so we went to sleep with incredible views and woke up to incredible views. The extra price for the balcony stateroom was actually priceless.

Thanks for the hot shower Albert and Mai!

As many of you know, Peter and I scheduled a seven day Alaskan inside passage cruise. The flood put a small kink in our preparation for the cruise because we had no electricity to do laundry or take a hot shower for the 3 days before we left. Thankfully, one of Peter's coworkers invited us to spend the night with his family and even let us catch up on our laundry. We were so thankful that we had clean clothes and a hot shower to begin our vacation.