July 10 - Tracy Arm

Ocean birds hitchhiking on the bergs

The beautiful and dramatic colors of the icebergs

Nance "aka Nanook of the North" in our dinghy

Yours truly "lookin good" in the land of bergs

As we cruised up Stephens Passage we were accompanied by a pod of humpback whales frolicking in the waters around us. One actually breeched and came down with a humongous splash. As always though it is a real challenge trying to capture anything other than a tiny spec on the camera. I will try and blow some of these up when I get home.

As we turned through markers into Tracy Arm we saw the most amazing sight, icebergs drifted everywhere. Tracy Arm is celebrated as having the largest icebergs in Alaska coming off North and South Sawyer glaciers at the head of the arm. The colors of the icebergs were really dramatic ranging from white to a deep cobalt blue. No two are alike and the shapes remind the viewer of all sorts of things, much like clouds.

We anchored in a "cove with no name" generally referred to as Tracy Arm Cove since it afforded some protection from the flotilla of icebergs due to a shallow shelf running across part of its mouth. We tucked in behind the shelf and anchored deep in the bay. We did not relish having to do battle with a floating iceberg the size of a large house in the middle of the night. I found some consolation in seeing that I was one of the deepest boats in the cove by virtue of my early arrival time and there were some really huge yachts between me and the ice.

We bundled up and jumped in our zodiac to go see the icebergs close up. We even managed to pick up some glacier ice out of the water. Nance gave me specific instructions as to how close we were allowed to pass by each iceberg and the distance actually receded as we became more comfortable with their presence. It was amazing though to watch one particularly large berg completely topple over as the wake of a passing boat moved the entire berg. We would not have wanted to be too close to that one!

We retired for the night watching a huge berg drift by the opening to the cove keeping our fingers crossed that it would keep moving down the arm to the open ocean to melt.