Northern Alaska

Day 40 - 29 July
As we have reached the most northern part of our cruise (& played with the clocks over the last week), we now have sunrise at 5.30am & sunset after 10.30pm, so not a lot of true darkness.  I think we berthed in Seward sometime around 6.00am,  but I didn't bother to get up until nearer 7.00 and found us looking directly into the Celebrity Millennium, berthed adjacent.  She us just a little bigger than us in passenger numbers, but larger overall.

As we did not have a tour planned we thought that we'd take it easy and go down for breakfast before facing US Homeland Security.  Ha ha - public address "there are currently no queues for US Immigration and we ask you to make your way down to the Legends Sports Bar" (Razzmatazz for those of you from the Sea Princess!).  Well, we were already on our way and off we went and all done in less than 5 minutes - no fingerprints, photos, passport scanning & once again no looking at the ESTAs which Princess have been harping on about.

After leisurely breakfast we got dressed up (cold & overcast) and headed off.  There were 2 free shuttles into town - a Princess one and a local one using old US school buses.  We took the latter as it had a greater variety of stops.  Seward is basically divided into 2 parts, the boat harbour and the "town".  Yes, the town is pretty sparce, but we wandered around and found a coffee shop,  which had adequate coffee & muffin but was mainly patronised by passengers & visitors using the free WiFi.

As drizzle was threatening, we decided to head back to the harbour area, so picked up the shuttle for that part of the trip,  which took us past all the RV camping area. Over 3,000 RV parking spots - huge.  We wandered around the boat harbour and continued back to the ship, probably a couple of miles away.

The Millennium was clearly at the end of her Alaskan cruise and all the passengers were disembarking, while presumably a whole ship load will be getting on this afternoon for the return journey. Thankfully, it seems most go straight to Anchorage, so the town was not overcrowded.

Lunch was a quick bite in the International Cafe, which was busy when we arrived as we'd made the mistake of getting back at roughly the same time as the morning tours were returning and the afternoon ones going.  Added to that, the ship had been having a major drill involving pretty well all of the crew, so service was slow but we weren't in any hurry.

We were due to sail about 7.00, however the time came and clearly there at least 3 huge semi-trailers to be unloaded onto the ship.   Given the tides can be up to 12 metres, the wharf is a little higher than usual and the stores can not be loaded directly by forklift, but need to be lowered down by crane or larger forklift.  This is more time consuming and there were the same issues with luggage on the Millennium. 

A by-product of this was that we were supposed to sail first as we'd tied up second and the aft mooring ropes of both ships were attached to a pontoon arrangement between us.  The harbour master staff or whoever therefore had to temporarily release us to allow the Millennium's ropes to be freed.  Anyway, the end result was that sail away didn't happen until just before 11.00pm - it was still light, but no, we did not bother to participate.

Day 41 - 30 July
High cloud again, but temperature is mid teens, so quite pleasant.  Yep, another sea day and to top it off also Formal tonight!  Back to the usual sea day routine, including morning coffee with Jo & Peter from Sydney,  who we met last year.  After that we carried on to the Cruise Critic lunch. I suppose it is time to mention that Vivian & Danny won (well) their bridge again!

Day 42 - 31 July
Today we woke to the docking of the ship at Icy Strait Point.  This is a relatively new port and the dock and associated facilities only opened a couple of months ago.  The town is named Hoonah and was settled by the Tlingit people (Native people) about 2,000 years ago, when they were forced out of adjoining Glacier Bay by the advancing glacier.

The area is owned and managed by the local people by way of Huna Totem Corporation - an Alaskan Native corporation formed as a result of their version of the Treaty of Waitangi,  settled as late as 1971.  Previously the town was host to cannery operations, but this has been replaced by tourism.  Almost all the tourist activities both in the little town and surrounding area are owned and operated by the Huna Totem Corporation.  They are certainly most progressive and have excellent facilities.

Moving away from the advertisement,  what did we do? Well we, and a lot of other passengers, went on remote wildlife & brown bear search.  It was a pleasant trip and was interesting,  but sad to say, the only bears we saw were the 2 beers in the restaurant on our return 😁  They do have bears in the area - 3 per square mile, and there was sign of bear activity, but not for us or any of the 10 other tours.  Must say that they were well prepared, as they had 2 armed guards with us.  Certainly not taking anything to chance.  The only wildlife we saw were Sika deer, squirrels & lots of bald eagles.

After returning to the shopping and activity area, we elected to have lunch out - I had the Halibut & chips (over priced and hugely overcooked), Vivian had the Salmon chowder - delicious and we  both had a local beer.  Really enjoyed the activity and the restaurant but decided against the 1.5 mile walk to the old town, which we'd already driven through.  It was quite cold and overcast, so grabbed a coffee and chat in the International Cafe.

Day 43 - 1 August
Glacier Bay scenic cruising is possibly THE highlight and delighted to say that this proved to be true.  While we were awake well before 5.30, it was clear that we were in for a sunny day for a change.  We have been here before, but it was early Spring and all the mountains & hills were covered in snow.  Today was spectacular as there were just patches of snow and the contrast of bare hills and the glaciers was breathtaking.

We spent most of the morning on our balcony with the Vista slowly passing by - but it was cold, cold and even colder as we were on the western side going into the main glacier.  Some great photos though, even if I say so myself.  Had a break about 11.00 and grabbed a coffee and then back to the viewing.  It was now more sunny on our side, but still cold & clear.  On our way out of the bay we decided to have lunch "upstairs" as MDR was not operating.  A year was a great choice - fresh salmon and whle we are sitting at the front of the ship, a whale decides to put on a display for a couple of minutes before we leave him/her behind.

We head off to our next port, Juneau, which is around 150 miles away, however we were surprised to later see the sun on our balcony (meaning that we were heading north, rather than south-east, which is where we should be going.  It turns out that because we have such a short distance to go, the ship just went backwards & forwards to fill in time.  Obviously the environment is not a consideration here.

Photos:
Seward-
Shuttle to town
Loading supplies late in the day
Vista we couldn't see until the Millennium sailed

Icy Strait Point -
Deer in the headlights
Bear country
One of our guards
Hidden bear
Bea(e)rs we did see

Glacier Bay
No need for any explanation