Cruising Up Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay stretches more than 60 miles from its mouth at Icy Strait to the base of the tidewater glaciers at its northern end. Quite impressive, particularly when you consider that it didn't even exist just 250 years ago.

When the founders gathered to sign the Declaration of Independence, glaciers reached all the way into Icy Strait. Glacier Bay had not yet been born. By 1800, the bay was 5 miles deep. When John Muir visited in 1879, the bay had grown by another 40 miles. Since then, it has expanded another 20 miles, as the glaciers continue to retreat.

For travelers, that means that getting to the glaciers takes time. But there is plenty to see along the way. South Marble Island, for example, provides a safe place to breed for Black-legged Kittiwakes, Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins (much rarer in these parts), Pigeon Guillemots, Common Murres, and other feathered critters.

It's also a spot where adolescent sea lions play king of the mountain.

Sea Lions and Humpbacks

The first day of our cruise proved to be a triple header. After kayaking with icebergs and seals in the morning, we spent the afternoon zipping around Sail Island. Which really ought to be named Sea Lion Island, for all its Steller's sea lions (pictured at right with a flock of Black Turnstones and Surfbirds).

George Steller, by the way, was the chief naturalist on Vitus Bering's expedition from Russia to Alaska. Bering managed to get a sea named after him, while Steller had a knack for affixing his name to critters. Besides the sea lion, there are the Steller's jay, sea eagle, eider, sea cow (extinct), and the presumably imaginary sea ape.

At dusk, we encountered a dozen humpback whales feeding. The humpbacks of southeast Alaska are famous for their bubble-netting technique, in which they surround a school of herring with bubbles, drive them to the surface, and then dramatically engulf them. They often work as a team (as we witnessed a few days later), but on this summer eve, they were working solo over a wide area. At times, you could look in any direction and see a humpback feeding or diving to begin again.

We photographers quickly learned that most humpback photos feature their tails as they prepare to dive out of sight.

Note: the middle photograph is by another fellow traveler.