The crew of Perception had some big decisions to make.  While we all really wanted to see a tidal glacier, from the get-go we never thought we’d have time to go deeper into Alaska than Ketchikan.  Our priority was always to get to Haida Gwaii, but the weather, current and tides had largely been in our favor and we were at least 10 days ahead of schedule.  Could we afford a 10 -12 day trip up to one of the southern glaciers?  If so, do we try for Juneau and see the Mendenhall Glacier, or venture up the Tracy Arm and see the Sawyer Glacier?  Glacier Bay was out of the question, we did not have reservations to enter as we hadn’t planned on getting so far north.  There was also a glacier accessible from Wrangell and Petersburg — LeConte Glacier, but the bay is so full of icebergs that fiberglass boats don’t dare venture in far enough to see it. We had inquired in Wrangell about joining an excursion and found out quickly that they are booked well in advance.  So we kept heading north, still undecided, when the weather turned.  We would be held up in Petersburg for a few days, cutting into our extra time.  We couldn’t jeopardize our Haida reservations by going much further north once the weather cleared.  After talking with some other mariners in the area, we heard rave reviews about a local Petersburg guide with excursions to LeConte that would not disappoint us.  Sure enough, I called Dan at Seek Alaska Tours and he got us booked for the upcoming Saturday, June 17^th, and even promised the weather would be clear for us. 

As billed, Dan did not disappoint.  He and his deckhand, Sage, picked us up from our boat in his  aluminum jetboat, Point Retreat, and after stopping for another small group, we were glacier bound.  We stopped first at some 8,000 year old petroglyphs depicting a canoe, the sun, and rain, then began the trip into LeConte Bay. 

The jetboat flew across the water at about 25 knots, more than 3 times the cruising speed of our catamaran.  It was unusual to get where we were going so quickly!

We stopped along the way at photo-op sites like a nun buoy covered in sea lions, a waterfall and some of the more massive icebergs where Dan would nose his boat all the way up to the feature so that we could literally reach out and touch them. This was also very foreign to us as it’s our policy to keep Perception far away from anything solid, while Point Retreat gets as close as possible. Once in LeConte Bay, we were delighted to discover it was calving season for the seals.  The mothers give birth to the pups on the icebergs where they are somewhat protected from predators. Some of the pups had been born yesterday, while others were as old as 3 weeks.  It was an amazing site.  The whole scene was practically sensory overload.  The thousands of unique and icebergs glistening in the sun, many with the hundreds of seal mamas and pups, eagles flying overhead, all the while zigzagging through the bergs and inching closer to the glacier which we couldn’t even see yet. Every now and then the hull would hit a smaller iceberg and scrape by others.  This was no place for a fiberglass sailboat, that is for sure! 

After a few miles of this we rounded the final turn and the glacier was in view.  The bay was now mostly full of ice and Dan had to sometimes push through areas of smaller blocks and other times he chose a larger berg (without a seal family) to use as a plow. Grace had taken so many photos of the seal pups that her good zoom camera battery was dead. We were momentarily bummed that we wouldn’t have the good zoom for the glacier but since we kept getting closer and closer to the glacier with each pass through the ice it turned out to be a non-issue.  We couldn’t believe how close we ended up getting to the actively calving face of the glacier.  It was as close as we could safely be. 

We saw some small calving events and a couple of shooters (icebergs that release under water and come shooting up like torpedoes) before nosing up into a waterfall that was just off one edge of the glacier face.  After spending at least an hour at the face, he turned the boat around to head back.  As Dan had predicted, the ice had shifted and closed in behind us and it was an even more slow and zigzagged path back out. 

We collected a few “bergie bits” to chill the evening cocktails.(Melinda)