It rained the whole time we were there, which made wandering much of the town very difficult. With Anastasia in her stroller, we took a complimentary shuttle to one end of the main drag and started walking. We were surprised at how little there was to see there. The Moose Lodge and movie theater right next to the typical cruise gift shops.
We came to a stand selling reindeer hot dogs and just had to try them. Turns out, they were excellent! Anastasia loved them. Right next to the stand was a giant stuffed bear (not taxidermied, stuffed like a teddy bear). Anastasia was afraid of it at first, but then finally let Orlando hold her so we could get a picture.
We'd been given a tip that we should go to a bar called the Pioneer to play a bit of pool with the locals. Unfortunately, our tipster didn't know that a new smoking law has been passed and the Pioneer is now one of the few smoking bars remaining in the town. The law is such that children are not permitted in bars where smoking is allowed. So, we bought a six pack of soda to take back to the ship and headed back to the main drag.
It didn't take long for us to decide that we were all getting wet and not really interested in wandering around much more. We decided it was time for lunch and it was best for us all to head back to the ship to enjoy it after getting into dry clothes.
It was a wonderfully relaxing afternoon, filled with naps followed by bouncing on Daddy.
Anastasia enjoyed her dinner of pasta with meat sauce (shared with mommy) while Daddy and Grandma enjoyed a plate of sushi. Soon enough, it was time to get Anastasia ready for bed, then it was time for the babysitter Marilee to take over so we could head off to dinner.
The next day, we would stay on the ship the whole day and cruise the Hubbard Glacier. The ship's naturalist narrated the tour, which was excellent. Anastasia went down for a nap shortly after the glacier cruise began, so she missed it all.
The glacier cruise started with the ship moving into the Bay of Discontentment around this beautiful green island, through waters that became just a bit icier with every couple of minutes.
The captain assured us that he had a very good line to bring us into the bay, and the ice was working with us on the day. It was a little bit intimidating with so many really big chunks of ice coming so close to the ship. The pictures we have don't really give scale, but they were big. This piece came within inches of the ship.
After sailing through the gauntlet of ice, we came into the bay to see this:
Eventually, the captain got us to within 1/2 mile of the face of the glacier. To say this was awe inspiring is an understatement. There are two smaller glaciers that feed into the Hubbard, and combined, they are among the most active glaciers in the world. Hubbard apparently moves with opposite tendancies to most other glaciers. When the world warms, Hubbard grows while most other glaciers are receding. It grows at an amazing rate (growing 30 feet and calving off more than 29 feet each day.)Here's some video that might give a sense of the size of this amazing site.
A few more photos:
The dark lines in the glacier are the deposits from volcano eruptions 200-400 years ago. The blue hue of the ice was surprising to all of us. Now, can you spot the harbor seal?
We were very fortunate to have cabins on both sides of the ship and just steps from each other, so we were able to see the views from each side of the ship. As the ship turned around to leave the glacier, we were given some wonderful panoramic views, and got to hear more calvings (imagine an extremly loud crack followed by the loudest clap of thunder you've ever heard lasting for 10 seconds.)
Anastasia woke up just in time to head to the bar for a cocktail and chat about the amazement that nature inspired and the experience we just shared.
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