Alaska Cruise Day 6: Glacier Bay National Park

 Thursday morning, we woke up bright and early for our day in Glacier Bay National Park. It was one of the things I was most excited for about our cruise and it did not disappoint.

View into Glacier Bay

Picking up the rangers for the day.

Lots of birds.

We saw 3-4 humpback whales right as we entered the park.

We also saw a lot of sea otters.

Lovely view!

Another otter

Birds

There were a ton of Steller sea lions on the rocks.

A mama and baby mountain goat.

We grabbed some breakfast and then headed back out on deck.

Glacier!

Humpback! It was pretty close to the boat.

This humpback did a lot of tail flapping and then dove down a bit. When it came back up, it went right under the cruise ship by where Matthew and U were standing.

Such still pretty water!

Birds on an iceberg.

Otters!

Such beauty!

Lots of icebergs

Heading up towards Johns Hopkins Glacier.

We started seeing lots of harbor seals on the ice. The National Park Service actually limits how far up the inlet the cruise ships go to protect the nesting area of the seals.

It's really pretty.

Someone is camping out. The National Park Service drops them off for a set number of days.

A few more shots around the inlet.

Another seal.

A couple photos of Johns Hopkins Glacier

More seals.

Lamplugh Glacier

More sea otters. I really enjoyed watching them. A favorite memory is seeing a mom and baby right by the ship and then seeing them dive and swim down. The baby was so cute!

A raft of sea otters. There were 25+ sea otters. Pretty cool to see!

First glimpse of Margerie Glacier.

Birds on iceberg

Megan and Me with Margerie Glacier.

Margerie Glacier. We saw it calf. It was relatively small but still cool.

Me, Matthew and U

Grandma O and U

Grandma O, U and Me with Margerie Glacier.

The topography is cool to look at.

Cool looking iceberg!

Cruising by Reid Glacier as we enjoyed our lunch in the buffet.

The sea otter is a keystone species in the area according to a presentation by the National Park Service. Sea otters eat red urchin which eat kelp and we don't want the kelp gone as they're critical for so many species. So thank you sea otters!

Seeing the Steller sea lions on the rocks on our way out of the bay.

More sea lions.

We saw a lot of birds including a bunch of common murres!

Such a beautiful place!

Bye bye rangers!

One last view into the park.

Nice scenery as we continue on our way. It did get to be quite windy and choppy!

Sea lions after we exited the bay. We also saw some humpback whales.

U and Sebastian at dinner. Sebastian called U "the boy with no hair" or "the magic guy."

At dinner, we saw a whale do the tail/fluke slapping and then it practiced breeching. Pretty cool!