Alaskan cruise - day 5 — Captain Father John

Juneau is a rainy port of call. It is the second most rainy city in the US after Kauai and ahead of Ketchikan which is number three. We took a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier. It is true that the ancient ice is blue. The ice is blue because it has been crushed beneath tons of ice and snow which squeezed the oxygen out of the water. The ice that is now at the top of the glacier is over 300 years old. The glacier itself is over 1,000 feet deep and is receding at a rate of 20 – 30 feet per year.

We went on a whale watch cruise and saw quite a few hump back whales and sea lions. We are fortunate because they will soon finish feeding in the cold Alaskan waters and will return to the warm waters of Hawaii to calve. The whale watch boat had three turbines and travelled at 40 mph.

Lunch was a special treat at Tracy’s crab shack. Tracy buys her crabs from the Deadliest Catch crab fishing boats. The restaurant is on the end of the pier and has a very basic menu of all crab type items. I ordered one king crab leg for $24.00. It was delivered wrapped in a piece of parchment paper with a nut cracker. Yum, yum, yum.

The next adventure was a helicopter ride to the Mendenhall Glacier. This was a great adventure. JP, Rachel and I flew for 15 minutes and came in low out of the setting sun and landed in the center of the glacier. Rachel sat in the co-pilot’s seat. It was amazing to stand on a 1,000 foot deep glacier and look down a 100 foot deep crevice of blue ice. It was a trip back in time. Rachel asked the pilot how he decided to fly choppers. Ryan said he was a US Forestry ranger and was flown in by helicopter to fight a forest fire. He had to spend several days in the forest surviving on MRE ‘s and sleeping on the ground. On the flight back he asked the chopper pilots where they slept? They said after dropping him off they slept in a hotel each night and had hot meals. The next day Ryan signed up for helicopter flight school.

Alison and Oscar went on a tour of the Alaskan brewery. It was a one hour tour followed by a sampling of all their brews. Oscar who is a devoted fan of Coors Light decided there may be other choices. This is a huge step forward.

Tomorrow we will dock in Skagway and ride bicycles down a mountain.

A view of the Hubbard Glacier.

A hump,back whale in Juneau, Alaska