The ship passed through Glacier Bay, I think it was within the park from before nine in the morning and until five or so. The morning started off very foggy, but luckily it slowly cleared during this day of cruising through amazing scenery.
Rangers from Glacier Bay National Park came out to board the ship and spend the day helping interpret what we were seeing.
Only a few cruise lines have qualified to enter the Park, entry is by permit, and the quantity of ships is limited.
It really was amazing scenery, and incredible to think about how this most of the area our ship went had been a flat-bottomed valley full of huge trees, and home to the Tlingit people until about 1750. A volcano in Russia erupted, darkening the skies for a year or two and depositing ash on the glaciers, which prompted a sudden advance of the Grand Pacific glacier. Within just a couple weeks the entire valley was filled by the glacier. After a hundred and fifty years it retreated, leaving behind this bay in place of their homeland.
The scale of what we saw is difficult to convey, but I will try with this series of photos.
That night comedian Ken Boyd was on the main stage. He was pretty funny.