Tracy Arm
This morning we awoke in Stephens Passage, heading south towards Tracy Arm. We would be the first ship of the season to enter the 32-mile long fjord, so we were especially excited to find out how many icebergs were floating near the glaciers, and how far we might be able to go up into the fjord.
The ship passed by steep, forested mountains, and as we progressed up the fjord, there were fewer trees, and the mountains were smooth rock, separated by U-shaped valleys. We passed by icebergs, which looked like expensive sculptures – here was a bird; there was a whale’s fluke.
There were very large icebergs, too, and in the fissures, or under the overhangs, (where there was shade from the sunshine), we saw beautiful, blue shades of ice. Water was green, thick with plankton. Eventually the ship’s forward progress was slowed so much by careful navigation between pieces of ice that we paused about 5 miles away from the front of the Sawyer glacier, too far away for us to see it. Here and there a shy harbor seal surfaced. Some of us were looking at birds in the water, and then our expedition leader Stephanie shouted: ‘There’s a gray whale!’ About 100 feet ahead of the ship, it exhaled, and we saw the distinctive, mottled back that could only belong to a gray whale. Wow! None of us on the ship had ever seen a gray whale in Tracy Arm. The whale appeared to be young, perhaps about 16 months old. Maybe this is the first time it is making its way to summer feeding grounds without its mother in faraway, northern Alaska.
In kayaks and Zodiacs, we got close to narrow streams tumbling down rocks, looked more closely at shapes and colors of ice, and peacefully enjoyed the majestic surroundings. One of our paddlers had a magical encounter: a gray whale surfaced and breathed 20 feet away from her.
