Bert on ice duty, a good size chunk of ice can do a lot of damage to the hull of a boat, this ice is immensly dense and hard.   The snowy ice is not too bad but the clear stuff is rock hard.

More and more ice showed up now, Don didn’t think we could come close to the South Sawyer glacier, but maybe we had a chance at the North one..

This is towards the South glacier, it looked pretty well packed with ice.

This is the North glacier, easier to come close to, another tour boat was here too, and a good thing, because the ice seemed to start closing us in, so we just followed him out, in his wake!!!   perfect!!!!

This is MV CHICHAKOF DREAM.

North Sawyer glacier.

We were hoping the glacier would calve while we were there, but not this time, the blue ice occurs when snow falls on the glacier and is then compressed and becomes part of it, the air bubbles are then squeezed out and the ice crystals enlarge which makes the ice look blue.  Sometimes it almost looks turquoise , the glacier ice has been there for a very long time and it is compacted down, so it is very different from the ice in your freezer, i have a chunk of glacier ice in my freezer, and its very, very hard, plus there is no frost burn showing on it at all.

Immensely hard ice, slowly wearing down from the constant wave movement.

Constant melting from the glacier up high.

MV  CHICHAKOF DREAM, we followed her out of the bay, she made a nice, ice free track for us!!

we could not get close to South glacier, just way too much ice, what an impressive view though!!     We are so grateful to Don and Ann, for taking us with them, we never could have done that with Curtsy.

On the way back to the (unnamed bay ) in Holkham bay.

That evening, a perfect view, after a perfect day!!!!