July 21 – Day 80 Ford's Terror and Dawes Glacier – Endicott Arm
It rained all night, the sky is foggy, gray and damp.
The plan for today is to go by small boat up to view the Dawes Glacier.
We decided to change plans and leave Ford's and anchor in the hook of Sumdum. This will enable us to see the glacier today and move on in the morning instead of having to wait until the afternoon tomorrow to exit Fords Terror.
Changed mind again and anchored in another hook about 6 miles closer to the glacier. Once anchored had a quick lunch and everyone headed out for Dawes. There were lots of large to very large icebergs in the water. Some were dark with dirt/rocks, and others were clear, to blue clear to brilliant blue, to white with just a touch of blue. There was no problem for getting through the ice.
We stopped a few times along the route for photo ops in front of or for a couple 'on' icebergs. On one huge iceberg Shawn got out and stood for his photo op. Jane followed him but stood on a different spot. We backed away a few feet for her photo and then came right back. Shawn had his hand out and grabbed her just as the ice she was standing on broke loose and fell into the water, at the same time she dove for the boat. Only one of her boots got wet, and not too deeply. She was on a spot that Shawn had looked at and said that he did not like the looks of a crack …. Smart he is. He had told her that he did not like 'her' spot but she picked it anyway. Oops.
Where Jane 'was' standing – just moments after she dove for the boat
Calving.
We are about a football field away from the face of the glacier.
The bergs in the foreground fell shortly before this photo.
Dawes was beautiful and was calving a fair amount, but nothing huge. The icebergs resulting from the calving we saw were smallish. A couple of the waves that were formed by the calving were large and gave us a ride. One of the waves flipped a couple of the bergs out in the bay. One flipped twice. Another large and about 4 ft tall one, not only flipped but then broke apart and basically turned into bergy bits. If these smaller calving caused the 3 ft swells that we rode, the huge icebergs that we've seen in the bay must have caused huge waves unless they broke off at the water level. The depth at the face of the glacier is about 600 ft, so that means the ice wall very likely goes very deep. The water temp was about 34 degrees.
Dawes Glacier
We left the glacier and headed back to the boats where we chatted about the days adventure
Raspberry Jelloshot Blue Icebergs
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