Anchorage to Seward

Wow - what a trip. The scenery along the 130 miles coastal road was some of the most scenic we have traversed. On route we were taken to a privately owned Nature Reserve where injured native animals and birds are taken until they can be released into the wild. This facilty is entirely funded by public donation and profits from a coffee shop and gift store. We were able to see several north american animals that we had not seen previosly.
Upon arrival in Seward, our embarkation procedures to board the ms Ryndam were extremly swift and straight forward. Lunch was available once we were onboard, which left the afternoon free to go ashore if we wished. However as it was raining again we elected to stay on board and spend the afternoon unpacking and settling in. The ms Ryndam is slightly smaller than the ms Volendam, with passenger capacity of 1200 compared to 1400. Our verandah suite is exactly the same as our previous one - luxurious.
Mandatory life boat drill was carried out prior to dinner and due to a number of delays with passenger arrivals etc. we did not sail until 11pm.
Sunday night and Monday was pretty much at sea with plenty of opportunity to participate in onboard activities. We chose to attend a 1 hour presentation given by the resident Marine Naturalist. During the afternoon we were invited to have drinks and 'hors dourves'in the deluxe verandah suite of a couple from Hervey Bay, Carl & Dianne who we have pal'd up with. Boy - their suite was even bigger than ours. Very early Tuesday morning had us entering College fjiord with its towering peaks and glaciers, followed later in the morning by our entry into Glacier Bay. We appear to be the only Cruise Ship on the water as we have not seen another at any time. Glacier Bay is renowned for it's beauty and spectacular "calving" glaciers. Our ship stopped for over an hour within two hundred metres of the Majorie Glacier which put on the most spectacular calving display while we were there. We saw lots of sea otters, humpback whales, harbour seals and a few sea lions within Glacier Bay. Fort!
unately for us the early morning mist cleared away completely and we had glorious blue skies for this memorable day. We then sailed into John Hopkins Bay and saw more whales in the distance. Took in a movie at 5pm - The Shaggy Dog, with Tim Allen. We are due to berth in Haines at 6:30am tomorrow, with all day free time, so we plan to go ashore, have a look around and hopefully send of these blog posts and a few emails from a land based payphone.
A bit of trivia.... to date we have taken over 600 digital photos plus 60 minutes of video - plenty of editing to be done..
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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