Wednesday 20th May

Today we spent time in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. We docked around 6am. We did not book any excursions for today, preferring to do our own thing. There were 3 other cruise ships in port and a fourth one arrived as we left.
We went ashore around 8.15, took the shuttle bus (5 minutes to ’downtown’) and headed straight for the cable car to take us to the 1,800 ft level of Mount Roberts. This mountain has 600 miles of underground tunnels. It was a large goldmine for many years but was closed down during the Second World War. The views from the top were staggering. There was deep snow up there - this region had a huge dumping of snow this winter and it was still lying very deep in some places.

The town, although the state Capital, like Ketchikan is a ‘cruise ship town’ - full of gift/souvenir/jewellery shops and they all seem to be selling the same things. And as there were four ships (= approx 12,000 people) in town everywhere was very crowded - not my ideal shopping scenario.

It was a beautiful day today with unbroken blue sky and sunshine until late afternoon.

During the afternoon we headed south again to make a detour into Tracy Arm Fjord at the end of which is the mighty Sawyer Glacier. Luckily weather conditions were excellent and the amount of floating ice was fairly minimal which enabled the ship to be navigated right up to the foot of the glacier. It took 2 hours to travel up the fjord and I spent most of the time on the forward lookout deck so had wonderful views. It is difficult to explain the magnificence of this fjord - very narrow and with mighty snow capped mountains dropping into the calm sea and quite a number of large ice floes, some of which were an amazing blue colour. How a ship this size can be navigated up such a narrow and winding channel with many ice floes is a mystery - I can only liken it to driving an overcrowded bus on a bendy tree lined narrow cycle path! It was quite an experience.
My only problem with the afternoon is that I got colder than I ever have before in my life. For most of the time I was fine, but as we approached the huge icy glacier the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. But I was very reluctant to leave my good viewing position, and when I did I had to resort to standing in a hot shower for ages to begin to get warm again.
Another unforgettable day.