North to Alaska continued - Saturday 3rd - 10th July 2010

Next stop was the Hubbard Glacier in Glacier Bay.  The ship sailed into the bay where there were lots of icebergs floating around and we got to within about a quarter of a mile of the glacier which we were told by the captain is about as close as you can get.  Sometimes there are too many icebergs and you have to stay out about 5 miles from it so we were very lucky although it was very cold.  The ship floated around for about 2 hours while we all stood on deck taking massive amounts of photos.  The glacier is calving all the time which is big chunks falling off the face of it.  It makes a tremendous noise like thunder.  The glacier length is about 12 miles wide and the depth is 1200 feet with about 350 feet of that above the water.  This was by far the best glacier we have ever seen.  Makes New Zealand's Franz Joseph and Fox glacier look like babies.

As usual the photos don't do this justice