Foto Friday: Tracy Arm & South Sawyer Glacier

Day 7: Exploring the Tracy Arm and Viewing the Sawyer Glacier

After our morning adventure in Juneau, we boarded the ship to head to the Tracy Arm to view the South Sawyer Glacier. Of course after our hike, we decided to test the hot-tub on board the ship (not as hot as we would have liked), catch up with Tony, and take a quick nap, since we had about three hours before reaching the Tracy Arm.

One of the things I planned on doing before the trip was to take a time-lapse from the ship.  I ended up taking it that day, and I'm really happy with the resulting video. I used an app called LapseIt and set up my iPhone to take pictures every 10 seconds, and then left it for nine and a half hours. Here's the result:

 

(The music is Hengilas from Jonsi, of Sigur Ros fame. I figured since we went through a fjord, it was appropriate to have Icelandic accompanying the images, since there are tons of fjords in Iceland) 

And to give you a better idea of how cool the Tracy Arm was that it got it's own blogpost, here are some more detailed pictures of what we saw that day.

On our way, just before the entrance to the Tracy Arm:

I found a bird!

One of many glacial waterfalls

Really seal-ly waters!

We saw seals! The marine mammal kind, not the "Kissed by a Rose" singer or the US Navy kind ;)

 

Iceberg, dead ahead.... and starboard, and port!

There were also tons of "small" icebergs! I say small cause we have no idea how much of their mass was hiding below the water. Each one was unique as a snowflake and so interesting to watch float by.

Glacial Waterfalls!
So gorgeous and surrounded us on both sides of the fjord

This was one of the coldest parts of the trip. Tony went to watch it from inside and eventually my dad and I ran in to grab more layers for everyone. The fjord created a wind tunnel and the wind whipping off the surface of the freezing glacial water as well as carrying the spray for so many waterfalls meant it was a crazy temperature drop from the morning's activities in Juneau.

The South Sawyer Glacier:
The Cruise Director was on the intercom giving us the history of the Sawyer Glacier and the Tracy Arm. But honestly, it was so windy, I could barely make out anything he said. Except that we were traveling through a fjord.
"What's a fjord?" you may ask. Well, according to Wikipedia it's "a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion."

You can see how much more we're wearing here than we were before. It was windy!

An up-close glimpse of the Sawyer Glacier (southern side)

It was then time to head out and prepare for dinner to recap our day over steak, salmon, pasta, and dessert of course (There's definitely something to be said for the pre-paid all you can eat meals on board a cruise-ship. And considering how much they produced every day, the food was really great)!