Sunday | June 5th

We have tweaked the itinerary a bit, which our owner insisted that we can “throw the brochure out the window and come up with the best damn itinerary possible”. I had suggested that we skip Wyndham Bay as our first day (which we did two days ago) simply because it is so close to the spectacular Tracy Arm fiord.

We motor up the latter and see several black bears along the shoreline scraping and slurping-up barnacles.

I am stunned to witness a 1-mile plus receding of the Sawyer Glacier since my first visit here 17 years ago. We put the ship close to a very distinctive waterfall that carves its path amongst a pile of moraine debris plastered to the cliff above the final 200-foot drop. This is where the 36-passenger sister ship M/V Wilderness Explorer that I used to work on (old sister ship made in same location as our current Wilderness Discoverer) would off-load kayakers within sight of the insanely blue tidewater glacier.

We enjoy seeing completely barren rubble as we take small boat tours up a very long mile to mile in a half up to see some massive calvings and spectacular blue ice-bergs (including one that looks like a frozen surfing wave). Indeed, as a cow drops a calf when it gives birth, a glacier drops tons of ice from seracs at its 200 to 300-foot face to give birth to ice bergs, bergy bits and growlers.

High above us by several hundred feet I point out the trim-line, where barren rock that has not seen the light of day for centuries if not many millennia is exposed and meets the vegetation line. It’s very obvious that there has been tremendous thinning in this wastage and ablation zone. Three distinct medial moraines are visible, telling us that there the lateral moraines of three other tributary glaciers feed into this river of ice called the Sawyer Glacier.

Studied since 1945 by the Juneau Icefield Station, these receding glaciers have been the subject of many studies by researchers. They collaborate with the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Big Island of Hawai’i which has marked a 1% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, a “greenhouse gas” that has contributed to climate change.

In the afternoon we are blown-away with Alaskan resident killer whales, around 25 to 30 of them. Some of them come directly underneath the ship and right alongside, stunning all of us as we realize our telephoto lenses do not work this close.

What could possibly top this? How about dozens of breaches (rise and break through the surface of the water to create a loud percussion and splash…thought to be a way to communicate with other whales miles away about the location of spotty food resources) from the Humpback Whale?

Better yet…a 45-minute bow-riding session from a dozen Dall’s Porpoise as we pass the Five Fingers Lighthouse in Frederick Sound. They are black and white cetaceans that are much smaller but whose color patterns look like killer whales (but they are much smaller, have a triangular dorsal fin and flat or spade-shaped teeth). Watching them create a rooster tail by moving so fast in the water is incredibly satisfying.

I finally realize the utility of the underwater camera mounted on our bow. The live feed is stunning, strait out of a National Geographic movie. It is shown in the lounge on our large-screen “adventure” television. I remind everyone to get out and listen to them breathing, a very rapid and distinct “two” exhalation followed by a hollow sounding inhalation. I tell those on the bow to go inside and watch them on t.v.. The porpoise directly in front of the bow are pushed on a pressure wave. They don’t have to move their caudal peduncle or tail flukes up and down in rapid motion as the other ones that are on the periphery.

This is as close whale bliss as it gets.

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