Day 18 - Juneau II

At breakfast we start to meet the other cruisers; all appear to be very friendly.

After breakfast Jill settles in to watch the US Open tennis so I go for a walk to see if our ship is in port yet. I bump into Gavin doing the same thing! The Empress of The North (EON) is in but way down the end of the harbour and of course it‘s raining! It took us about 30 minutes to walk to the boat. One other smaller cruise ship is also in port, this is the size of ship that Jill turned down before we found the EON.

When we got back to the hotel the lobby is a ZOOOO! Bags coming in from the ship and bags going out to the ship!

Had a nice chat with Patrick; Federer wins easily and Roddick looks set to win also.

The cruise officially starts at 12pm as we board a coach to go to the Mendenhall Glacier about 15 miles outside of Juneau. It is one of the many glaciers of the Juneau ice field that is 1500 sq miles in size. The glacier is 300’ thick with about 100’ above the water and 1.5 miles wide at its terminus. It is receding at the rate of 300’ per annum; it’s been doing this for a long time, well before global warming became the topic du jour. Since the glaciers have receded since the last ice age the land that was below them has been rising, this is called isostatic rebound; in Juneau it’s at the rate of ¾ inch per annum, 8 feet since the gold rush!!

From the glacier we went to a salmon bake for lunch, basically a BBQ, but with salmon! There were some old gold mine workings and tunnel and a pretty waterfall.

Then back on the bus and then onto the EON for the first time. The boat is fantastic and just what we had hoped for. Our room is on the top deck and is the front stateroom on the starboard side, that’s the right side for all you landlubbers. It’s amazing how they can get such a small space to be so functional. The EON is fairly new, she was launched in 2003, so this is her 4th season.

We cast off at 5pm, the boat is amazingly quiet; we settle into an easy routine, drinks before dinner and then a leisurely meal.

Later we spot our first whales in the distance, only the spouting is visible, hoping for closer encounters later in the cruise.

Skagway tomorrow….