July 16 -- College Fiords

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A word to the wise to potential cruisers -- when the schedule says "College Fiords, 6:40 am" it does not mean "we'll park there at 6:40 and spend the day." It means "If you want to see the glaciers, better get up and see them."

I happened to be awake early (that four-hour time change thing, and then the fact that it gets light really early in the morning). I cracked the curtains, and this is what I saw out the window. (You can tell it was taken through the window by all the dark specks.)







The Bowdlerized version of what I thought was "Gracious goodness, I'd better get dressed and get outside!"

Wouldn't want to have missed this...........

Weren't we lucky that the wind was still -- what cool reflections........







When I mentioned to someone that we'd seen a lot of glaciers, the reply was "But no icebergs, right?"

Actually, we saw lots and lots of icebergs, just not any that were all that big. I believe it's the case that even small icebergs can mess up the propellers, but we didn't see any that were big enough to do other damage to the ship.







We were told that the dirt in the glaciers/icebergs was picked up from the ground as the glacier flowed to the sea.











The glaciers in College Fiords are named after colleges in the east. (We don't know why they spelled "fjord" with an "i"................. Perhaps for the same reason the Rijndam is spelled "Ryndam." Some unreasonable prejudice against the letter "j"??)

This biggest one is Harvard, and all the rest seemed to be named after the Seven Sisters.....







The ice can come under enormous pressure (it's thousands of feet deep in some places). The pressure forces out any air bubbles that might have been in the ice, and the remaining only-water ice is very blue.







Goodbye, Harvard.







Time for my first breakfast.

Cruise ships are hobbit heaven. First breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, snack, tea, dinner, late night extravaganza............

Tea, pain au chocolat (undistinguished), and a glass of water. This was one of the tables that is inside the area by the larger pool. There is a retractable roof over the pool, so it's sort of inside, sort of outside, depending on the weather. This table was right outside the Lido cafeteria on deck 11. And still is, I bet, just without me to witness.

I regret to say I cannot tell you which glacier you see through the window.







Ok. Fortified. Let's go see some more ice.









Critters! We saw critters!

The sea otters were small enough, and far enough away, that they were more recognizeable for the curving wake they left behind them than for their cute little selves.







Thank goodness for a big zoom! This shot was clear enough that, blown up, you can recognize its adorable otter nose.







Ok, back to our regularly scheduled ice-watching. Another excellent reflection, on the still water. Ship shadow at bottom.







Isn't it interesting how the propellers' churn marks stay on the water long after they were made? Without spreading or anything?







Harbor seal!







Any time a big ship goes in places where knowledge of local waters is important, you take on a pilot who is an expert in those particular waters.

As we leave College Fiords, our pilot leaves us.







Hey! What's on those little beaches over there?







These guys have such a recognizeable shape -- we were close enough to see them with our bare eyes and know who they were.

Stellar sea lions. There was a lecture about Alaskan wildlife on the ship. We were told that these are the biggest of sea lions. (As always, click on the pic for a bigger version.)







Wow.





In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, a link to the next one is here.

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