Another interesting day in Alaska, lovely gray skies everywhere! As we stood on the bow of our ship, the National Geographic Sea Bird, we watched a series of seabirds fly off, or paddle furiously with their wings, till they were a good distance from our ship. Geese, different ducks, and marbled murrelets. Off in the distance we saw the once great (we suppose) Baird Glacier, today reduced to a very thin slice of ice, with its front far inland, and having left huge amounts of gravel, rocks, and sand as a frontal moraine on the beach.
Then, as we approached, we slowly entered an incredibly beautiful cove, Scenic Cove, where a series of white-tailed ducks showed themselves off to us, as well as the high-walled cliffs with a few trees and, at the end, a small green meadow. The water of the ocean there was green, a reflection of the large amount of trees on the cliffs.
On we went to Cascade Creek, another super sight, with many wooden steps of a boardwalk, and a monstrous waterfall, noisy and wet, as an enormous amount of water is splashed and pushed by the wind off to OUR side of the falls.
We soon picked up our anchor and set out for Petersburg, that small, lovely, and interesting fishing town, begun in 1897 by an American Norwegian, Peter Buschmann. It was founded there because of the availability of wood to make the crates for shipping fish, the availability of ice, the nearby Le Conte Glacier, and the enormous amount of fish, so many different kinds: salmon, rockfish, yellow fish, halibut, and others!
Today was Norwegian Constitution Day, and we lucked out as there were a great amount of activities to be enjoyed, including a great parade! We saw many children dressed in the Norwegian clothes, and a Viking ship, filled with noisy tremendously dressed Vikings, with horn helmets and all. Blond Viking girls were to be seen everywhere also! Many games were played, and noise was the name of the day, as even a helicopter with the American and Norwegian flags buzzed the town.
Eventually we managed to get away from the dock, and set off for our next destination, and had ourselves a super Dungeness (and other delicacies) dinner, capped off by a rhubarb crisp with ice-cream. Oh, my!
