Tuesday, June 27, 1995
Ate breakfast at table 19 where we met our waiter Eric Christophe (from Paris) and our busboy Mahmut Alar (from Turkey). They did a fantastic job throughout the week. The food was generally terrific, but did fall a notch or two short of what we had on our NCL cruises. Occasionally vegetables were obviously from frozen stock rather than fresh (this is particularly surprising considering all the Dynasty's ports are in the USA). Also, the V-8 juice promised on the menu was simply tomato juice and the portabello mushrooms were plain mushrooms from a jar. There was no lobster, and surprisingly no king crab. Still, I don't want to sound like I was disappointed because overall the food was fantastic.After breakfast we attended a slide show about the ports we would be seeing. Then tried our hands (and feet) at line dancing -- the "Electric Shuffle." We rounded out a busy morning with team trivia, Pente and a game of ping-pong. We relaxed over lunch then played cards on deck. The scenery was fantastic. The ship sailed by Mount St. Elias. Rising to 18,000 feet from the sea, Mt. St. Elias is the largest rise from sea level in the world. The ice field in the St. Elias mountain range is larger than Rhode Island and feeds several glaciers. The ice field has accumulated enough dirt that in places it has a small forest growing on top.
We grabbed a snack of cookies and ice cream. I spent some time exercising
which was mostly to have an excuse to relax in the jacuzzi for a while.
The Crown Dynasty turned into Yakutat bay and sailed
up to Hubbard and
Taylor Glaciers.
Both are tide water glaciers meaning they reach the sea
where they slowly break apart (a process known as calving).
The calving
produced plenty of floating ice in the bay.
It made a resounding thump
against the hull of the ship. The ice also made a nice sun deck for the
harbor seals which watched our ship (and probably many more each week).
When calving occurs the bright blue ice underneath is visible. Glaciers
are formed by ice fields which receive hundreds of feet of snow each year.
The weight of the snow causes the lower layers to compact into ice. The
structure of ice formed under such pressure reflects a beautiful blue
light. Near the surface of the glacier cracks and imperfections cause the
reflection to be more white, but portions of the glacier underneath
(revealed by calving) are bright blue. Glaciers are actually flowing
rivers of ice. They are fed by the ice fields and usually flow a few
inches a day. During the winter they are created at the source more
quickly than they melt and break apart at the terminus and so the glaciers
advance. During the summer the melting is faster so the glaciers recede.
In an ice age the annual advances exceed the retreats and the glaciers move
out to cover more land. Occasionally weather conditions permit glaciers to
flow tens or hundreds of feet in a single day, but this is a rare
occurrence.
Taylor Glacier is covered with the dirt it picked up on its journey to the
sea. Hubbard Glacier has little or no dirt and is quite a spectacle. At
the terminus where we were, the glacier is 6 miles wide and
the cliffs of the glacier
rise 250 feet from the sea. I wonder if the seals appreciate
the view.
The Dynasty left Yakutat bay. We ate dinner and saw an entertaining show. It was all we could do to stay awake for the midnight buffet.
Animals seen:
- Harbor Seals
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