College Fjord and Whittier

The last full day of our cruise we sailed to College Fjord.  It took until almost 5:00 PM to reach the
At the end of the Fjord, eight glaciers are visible at one time, making for wonderful scenery.  http://www.gibbworld.com/glaciers/collegefjord.html.  Also since our arrival time was late in the afternoon, the sky was a perfect shade of blue and the sun was shining brightly.  No complaints here, finally! 

 

The most impressive is the Harvard Glacier, which has a perfect example of the raceway curves of

Harvard Glacier

Yale Glacier

 
 

Closeup of Yale Glacier

 
 

dirt and
rock running the length of the glacier.  If the glacier was prone to calving, there was little activity the day we were there.  The other glaciers there also had very little calving activity.  However, we were able to see harbor seals for the first time and they seemed perfectly happy to bask in the sunshine keeping cool all the while by laying on top of an iceberg. 

We spent several hours cruising and observing the glaciers, other than 5 seals, a few otters and one humpback whale, the wildlife was not as plentiful as the day before.   Which really translates to-Tony and I could eat at a reasonable time since I wouldn’t be looking for whales to take pictures of!   Since sunset was close to midnight, Tony and I also had the rest of the evening to relax before departing the next morning. 

Princess photo crew took to the waters to photo passengers
from their cabins.  They stopped to investigate an iceberg.

Tony even went to bed early, but as I was scrolling through my thousands of photos, I saw the scenery from our balcony coming down the bay to Whittier where we would dock around 1 AM.  The scenery was fantastic, waterfalls appeared to be falling from the sky, glaciers so close, I thought I could reach out and touch them,  It really made me regret that we came in around dark.  But it is never really dark in Alaska, so after waking Tony up, we went up on deck to view the beautiful scenery and watch the docking process in Whittier.  There were only a couple other crazy fools out there with us.  Unbeknownst to all the other passengers, they were missing one of the best scenery opportunities of the cruise.  Finally about 1:30 AM we headed off to bed, trying to get some sleep before our 7 AM departure for Denali.
 


Whittier as we pulled into dock.