Today we woke up sailing north through Glacier Bay National Park. This magnificent network of fjords is where we spent all day, searching for wildlife and admiring glaciers. We stopped early in the morning to pick up our Park Ranger and our Hoonah Tlingit Cultural Interpreter. With the company of our guests for the day, we learned about the marvelous natural and cultural history of Glacier Bay National Park.

To begin the day, we stopped at South Marble Island. The rocks on South Marble are vegetation-free in some areas, and this exposed rock provides for excellent nesting ground for a number of seabird species. We saw countless tufted puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, glaucous-wing gulls, and some black oystercatchers, common murres, pigeon guillemots, and even four horned puffins.

We sailed into Tidal Inlet, and on the way out, we stopped at Gloomy Knob. Here we found a group of about five mountain goats. Some of the nannies had kids with them, and as they peacefully rested on a low meadow, we were delighted to admire their beauty and their amazing capabilities of surviving on the edge of the cliffs, where they find safety from terrestrial predators.

We continued sailing north through Tarr Inlet, all the way to the fjord’s end, where we were mesmerized by the beauty of Margerie and Grand Pacific Glacier. Later on, we sailed towards Johns Hopkins Glacier. We were fortunate to get to see this magnificent glacier, which was just recently opened to visitors just a few days ago.

Our last stop was at Blue Mouse Cove, where we saw bald eagles, and rafts of sea otters as we sailed by.